UC-NRLF 


SB 


WORK 


SELF-SUPPORTING 
STUDENTS 

IN 

CERTAIN  NEW  YORK  CITY 
HIGH  SCHOOLS 


By 
WALTER  W.  PETTIT 

NEW  YORK  SCHOOL  OF  SOCIAL  WORK 


SUBMITTED    IN    PARTIAL   FULFILMENT  OF  THE 

REQUIREMENTS  FOR  THE  DEGREE  OF  DOCTOR  OF 

PHILOSOPHY  IN  THE  FACULTY  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY 


THE  NEW  YORK  SCHOOL  OF  SOCIAL  WORK 

105  EAST  TWENTY-SECOND  STREET,  NEW  YORK 

1920 


EXCHANGE 


SELF-SUPPORT  IN  CERTAIN  NEW  YORK 
HIGH  SCHOOLS 


STUDIES  IN  SOCIAL  WORK 


SELF-SUPPORTING 
STUDENTS 

IN 

CERTAIN  NEW  YORK  CITY 
HIGH  SCHOOLS 


By 
WALTER  W.  PETTIT 


NEW  YORK  SCHOOL  OF  SOCIAL  WORK 


SUBMITTED    IN    PARTIAL   FULFILMENT  OF  THE 
REQUIREMENTS  FOR  THE  DEGREE  OF  DOCTOR  OF 
PHILOSOPHY  IN  THE  FACULTY  OF  PHILOSOPHY, 
COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY    . 


THE  NEW  YORK  SCHOOL  OF  SOCIAL  WORK 

105  EAST  TWENTY-SECOND  STREET,  NEW  YORK 

1920 


Copyright,  1920,  by 
THE  NEW  YORK  SCHOOL  OF  SOCIAL  WORK 


WM  '  F.  FELL  CO  •  PRINTERS 
PHILADELPHIA 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  SELF  SUPPORT  IN  NEW  YORK  HIGH  SCHOOLS 7 

II.  THE  SELF-SUPPORTING  STUDENT         .     .  . 14 

THE  WORKING  BOY  AND  His  POSITION 18 

a.  Economic  Status 19 

b.  The  Position 29 

c.  Educational  Value  of  Position 35 

III.  THE  SCHOOL  AND  THE  SELF-SUPPORTING  BOY 42 

IV.  CO-OPERATIVE  WORK 50 

V.  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  AND  THE  STUDENT  WHO  MUST  WORK       ...  64 

VI.  SCHOLARSHIPS 73 

APPENDIX  78 


415645 


[5 


CHAPTER  I 

SELF-SUPPORT  IN  NEW  YORK 
HIGH  SCHOOLS 

In  a  great  city  like  New  York  there  are  numerous  opportunities  for 
a  high  school  pupil  to  earn  money  and  pay  wholly  or  in  part  his 
expenses  while  in  school.  Part-time  positions  of  various  kinds  are 
open  to  boys  and  girls.  Many  small  stores  depend  upon  high  school 
students  to  take  and  deliver  orders  after  school  hours,  and  larger 
stores  employ  students  to  assist  in  caring  for  the  extra  trade  on  Satur- 
days. The  newspapers  of  the  city  give  a  number  of  school  boys  em- 
ployment for  a  few  hours  each  day,  and  delivering  papers  or  caring 
for  news-stands  makes  it  possible  for  many  a  boy  to  remain  in  high 
school.  The  long  summer  vacation  instead  of  being  a  period  of  rest, 
is  used  by  a  small  army  of  boys  and  girls  to  earn  money  to  meet  the 
needs  of  the  next  school  year. 

Working  for  salaries  is  not  the  only  way  in  which  boys  and  girls  are 
helping  themselves  in  securing  an  education.  Many  families  own 
small  stores  or  stands,  and  children  devote  free  hours  to  assisting 
parents  in  caring  for  the  family  business.  Assistance  rendered  parents 
in  this  way  frequently  makes  it  possible  to  economize  hi  hiring  clerks 
and  thus  the  child  is  permitted  to  remain  in  school.  Work  of  this 
type  is,  therefore,  a  kind  of  self-support. 

The  following  study  has  to  do  with  New  York  City  high  school 
students  who  are  working.  The  first  investigation  covered  3,395 
boys  and  2,578  girls;  the  second,  161  boys  who  were  studied  inten- 
sively; the  third,  groups  of  co-operative  students1  from  three  high 


1  Co-operative  students:  Students  who  are  taking  vocational  courses  and  who 
work  in  pairs,  alternating  between  the  school  and  a  position.  In  New  York  City 
high  schools  this  means  every  other  week  in  school. 

[7] 


schools.  * T£e* study* deals*  "with  the  part-time  work  the  student  is 
doing  from  two  points  of  view,  that  of  the  student  and  that  of  the 
school.  The  economic  status  of  the  boy's  family,  the  position  in 
terms  of  wage  paid,  hours  required  and  effect  on  leisure  time,  and  the 
vocational  value  of  work  done,  are  parts  of  the  problem  from  the 
students'  standpoint.  The  marks  of  working  students,  their  elimina- 
tion from  school,  and  their  regularity  of  attendance  and  punctuality 
are  considered  from  the  standpoint  of  the  school.  Whether  students 
who  work  outside  of  school  hours  are  able  to  do  as  high  a  grade  of 
school  work  as  others  do  is  investigated.  Inasmuch  as  co-operative 
classes  in  high  schools  give  students  who  might  otherwise  leave  school 
because  of  economic  pressure  an  opportunity  to  support  themselves 
in  part,  these  students  are  studied  to  see  to  what  extent  their  half- 
time  work  interferes  with  their  school  work.  Finally,  an  effort  is 
made  to  find  out  what  the  high  schools  are  doing  to  help  the  working 
student,  and  the  ways  in  which  schools  can  be  of  greater  assistance 
to  the  student  who  must  support  himself. 

A  preliminary  study  was  made  of  Erasmus,  Eastern  District, 
De  Witt  Clinton,  and  Wadleigh  high  schools.  Erasmus  is  in  a  resi- 
dential section  of  Brooklyn  and  probably  presents  less  opportunity 
for  self-support  and  less  need  on  the  part  of  the  students  for  outside 
work  than  the  other  schools  studied.  Erasmus  was  therefore  not 
included  in  the  final  investigation.  Eastern  District  is  a  Brooklyn 
high  school  with  a  large  percentage  of  students  of  foreign-born 
parentage.  De  Witt  Clinton  is  a  boys'  high  school  on  the  west  side  of 
Manhattan  with  a  large  attendance  of  Jewish  boys.  Wadleigh  is  a  girls' 
high  school  in  which,  at  the  time  this  study  was  made,  the  students 
were  mostly  American  born  and  to  a  large  extent  of  American  parents. 

Preliminary  questionnaires  covering  the  activities  of  the  students 
for  one  week  were  sent  to  the  three  high  schools.  (A  copy  of 
this  four  by  six  questionnaire  card  will  be  found  in  the  appendix.) 
In  two  of  the  schools  the  principal,  and  in  the  third  the  head  of  the 
English  Department,  distributed  the  cards  to  the  teachers  with  a 
request  that  they  be  filled  out  by  the  pupils  without  comment  from 
the  teacher.  This  was  done  in  the  three  schools  on  Tuesday  or 

[8] 


Wednesday,  February  23  or  24,  1915,  and  covered  the  work  done  by 
the  pupils  during  the  week  February  14-21.  Several  investigations 
previously  made  of  the  earnings  of  high  school  students  had  included 
the  entire  year.  The  possibility  of  inaccuracy  because  the  student 
failed  to  remember  his  earnings  for  such  a  long  period  was  so  great 
that  a  shorter  period  was  used  in  this  study.  The  student  was  asked 
to  state  what  he  had  done  each  day  of  this  week  and  how  much  he 
had  earned.  In  order  to  save  embarrassment  pupils  were  told  that 
"boy"  or  "girl"  instead  of  their  names  might  be  written  at  the  top 
of  the  card.  Some  of  the  girls  in  Wadleigh  and  a  few  in  Eastern  Dis- 
trict followed  this  suggestion.  In  general  the  students  gave  complete 
information  under  their  own  names. 

The  study  of  the  effect  of  co-operative  work  on  students'  marks  was 
made  after  classes  had  had  one  semester  on  half  time  in  school.  These 
classes  in  Bushwick  and  Washington  Irving  high  schools  were  used 
because  they  were  doing  the  same  academic  work  required  of  full- 
time  students.  Unfortunately,  the  only  available  way  of  studying 
these  students  was  the  unsatisfactory  method  of  using  teachers' 
marks.  Only  those  co-operative  students  were  studied  who  according 
to  their  teachers  were  doing  the  same  work  in  school  that  was  expected 
of  students  on  full  time. 

Finally,  a  more  detailed  study  was  made  of  some  of  the  boys  in  De 
Witt  Clinton  High  School.  A  questionnaire  was  prepared  to  supple- 
ment the  printed  card.  This  was  used  with  a  dozen  students  and 
somewhat  modified  before  it  was  used  with  the  whole  group  of  161 
students.  (A  sample  of  this  modified  questionnaire  will  be  found  in 
the  appendix.)  Interviews  were  held  with  these  161  students  during 
which  the  questionnaire  was  filled  out  and  any  further  information 
which  seemed  of  value  secured.  These  boys  were  selected  at  random 
as  far  as  possible.  They  were  chosen  from  the  study  hall  where  a 
large  and  constantly  changing  group  of  students  may  be  found  at 
almost  any  hour.  They  come  from  all  grades  and  are  apparently  as 
representative  a  group  as  could  be  found.  The  interview  was  held 
at  the  back  of  the  large  stage  in  the  auditorium,  and  boys  were  sent 
to  the  interviewer  in  groups  of  two  and  three  by  the  student  monitors. 

[9] 


In  the  course  of  investigating  what  the  schools  in  New  York  and 
other  cities  were  doing  to  assist  self-supporting  students,  an  interesting 
plan  was  found  in  the  newly  organized  work  of  De  Witt  Clinton  High 
School  and  this  is  described  somewhat  in  detail  with  suggestions  for 
making  the  work  more  efficient. 

A  brief  summary  of  the  study  is  here  given  the  reader.  The  various 
points  in  this  summary  are  presented  at  length  in  the  following  pages, 
together  with  the  data  secured  in  the  various  investigations  and  a  dis- 
cussion of  their  significance. 

Data  from  3,395  New  York  high  school  boys  show  from  one-seventh 
to  one-sixth  of  them  engaged  in  remunerative  work  during  the  week 
studied,  and  of  2,578  girls  approximately  one  in  twenty  was  working 
for  wages  during  the  same  period.  Special  studies  of  students  in  one 
of  the  high  schools  show  from  one-third  to  one-half  the  boys  working 
for  money  at  some  time  during  the  year. 

From  the  same  studies  it  is  evident  that  from  one-seventh  to  two- 
sevenths  of  the  girls  and  from  one-sixth  to  one-fourth  of  the  boys  are 
assisting  parents  at  home  at  any  one  time  during  the  school  year. 


Economic  Status 

Of  a  special  group  of  high  school  boys  who  reported  as  to  the  use 
of  their  money  21  per  cent  were  supporting  themselves,  and  several 
were  supporting  their  families  in  addition.  In  the  same  group,  boys 
who  were  engaged  in  remunerative  work  were  living  in  apartments 
averaging  4.99  rooms  each,  while  the  boys  who  had  not  been  working 
lived  in  apartments  averaging  5.68  rooms  in  size.  Those  boys  who 
were  employed  ten  hours  or  over  per  week  came  from  homes  which 
averaged  a  room  smaller  than  homes  of  boys  who  did  no  work. 

In  this  group  of  students  parents  of  children  not  working  were  a 
little  more  frequently  the  owners  of  their  business  than  parents  of 
children  who  were  working  for  wages.  Parents  of  children  who  were 
working. without  wages  were  much  more  frequently  the  owners  of 
their  business  than  parents  of  children  who  were  not  working  or  who 
were  working  for  money. 

[10] 


In  the  group  of  3,395  high  school  boys  those  born  in  the  United 
States  of  American-born  fathers  were  less  likely  to  be  working  than 
those  of  foreign-born  fathers.  Boys  of  foreign-born  fathers  were 
less  likely  to  be  working  when  they  themselves  were  born  in  America 
rather  than  abroad. 

Brothers  and  sisters  of  working  boys  in  the  small  group  studied 
intensively  were  less  frequently  graduates  of  elementary  schools 
than  was  the  case  among  brothers  and  sisters  of  boys  who  were  not 
working. 

In  the  same  group  boys  who  were  not  working  lived  in  apartments 
renting  for  $11.60  a  month  more  than  the  apartments  of  boys  who  were 
working  for  wages,  as  shown  by  inquiries  of  the  janitors. 


Position 

The  boys  and  girls  who  were  working  in  the  high  schools  studied 
were  earning  wages  which  varied  greatly.  In  one  high  school  the 
median  wage  per  hour  for  boys  was  18  cents;  in  another  25  cents. 
For  girls  the  median  wage  per  hour  was  30  cents  in  the  two  schools 
studied. 

The  number  of  hours  worked  per  week  for  wages  varied  greatly, 
being  twelve  as  a  median  in  one  school  for  boys  and  seven  as  a  median 
for  boys  in  another  school.  Girls  worked  a  smaller  number  of  hours 
per  week,  the  median  being  six  and  four  and  a  half  in  groups  of  girls 
from  two  schools. 

Of  a  group  of  De  Witt  Clinton  High  School  students  those  who  do 
not  work  report  for  the  week  studied  more  recreation  than  students 
who  work.  This  holds  true  for  the  number  of  different  kinds  of 
recreation,  for  the  number  of  times  any  recreative  activity  was  engaged 
in,  as  well  as  for  the  total  number  of  hours  devoted  to  recreation.  A 
comparison  of  students  working  for  wages  ten  hours  or  more  per 
week  with  students  not  working,  shows  the  latter  to  have  had  almost 
twice  as  much  recreation  from  the  standpoint  of  hours,  kinds,  and 
number  of  recreative  activities  engaged  in.  Long  hours  of  work 
outside  school  greatly  decrease  the  attendance  of  school  boys  at 

[111 


movies  and  shows,  and  the  data  indicate  that  participation  in  athletic 
sports  suffers  even  a  greater  reduction. 

In  the  small  group  of  boys  studied  the  most  common  way  of  se- 
curing a  position  was  found  to  be  reliance  on  friends.  Calling  on 
employers  and  answering  advertisements  were  given  as  next  in 
popularity. 

Boys  earn  money  in  a  great  variety  of  occupations.  The  most 
popular  is  working  in  stores  or  offices.  Twenty-seven  per  cent  of  the 
students  working  for  wages  in  one  school  and  20  per  cent  in  another 
were  so  employed.  Taking  orders  and  delivering  for  stores,  work 
connected  with  the  distribution  of  newspapers,  and  employment  as 
pages  in  public  libraries  are  popular  occupations.  The  girls'  work  is 
much  less  varied  and  practically  all  the  girls  from  whom  data  were 
received  were  earning  through  teaching,  working  in  stores  or  offices, 
or  as  waitresses  or  nurse  maids. 

In  most  cases  there  is  no  relation  discernible  between  the  work  the 
boy  is  doing  and  the  future  occupation  he  intends  to  enter. 


The  School  and  the  Working  Boy 

In  the  small  group  of  students  studied,  boys  working  do  not  appear 
to  be  handicapped  in  their  school  work  in  so  far  as  school  marks  are 
an  indication.  This  conclusion  is  supported  by  another  study  in 
which  boys  who  are  working  at  least  up  to  twenty  hours  a  week  are 
given  as  high  marks  as  boys  who  are  not  working. 

There  is  more  elimination  from  school  among  the  boys  who  work 
than  among  the  boys  who  do  not  in  the  case  of  100  boys  selected  at 
random  from  each  of  two  schools,  half  of  whom  were  working. 

In  the  small  group  of  students,  boys  who  were  working  were  less 
regular  in  their  attendance  and  a  little  more  likely  to  be  tardy  than 
boys  who  were  not  working. 

In  co-operative  work  in  two  schools  studied  the  students  seemed 
to  be  suffering  little  or  no  handicap  from  the  half  time  devoted  to 
work.  There  seems  to  be  a  tendency  among  the  co-operative  students 
studied  to  do  just  average  work,  and  the  distribution  range  of  their 

[121 


marks  is  smaller  than  in  the  case  of  students  in  regular  courses. 
Co-operative  work  furnishes  a  means  of  helping  the  boy  who  must 
support  himself  to  remain  in  school. 

In  a  large  high  school  the  appointment  of  a  special  teacher  to  advise 
with  students  and  assist  in  placing  those  who  must  work  is  advocated. 
The  interest  of  the  home,  employer,  and  school  must  be  taken  into 
consideration,  and  a  central  bureau  organized  where  the  work  of  the 
different  high  schools  can  be  systematized  and  the  information  of 
the  co-ordinators1  of  the  different  high  schools  utilized. 

Finally,  the  English  system  of  secondary  scholarships  is  described 
and  contrasted  with  the  policy  of  the  Board  of  Education  in  New 
York  City. 


1  The  teacher  who  supervises  the  student  in  the  shop  or  office  and  correlates  the 
work  of  the  classroom  with  the  outside  work. 


113 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  SELF-SUPPORTING  STUDENT 

The  first  study  of  self-support  in  New  York  City  high  schools  covered 
5,973  students  in  the  three  high  schools,  De  Witt  Clinton  (a  boys' 
high  school),  Eastern  District  (a  co-educational  school),  and  Wad- 
leigh  (a  girls'  school).  Each  student  filled  out  the  questionnaire 
card  shown  in  the  appendix,  and  stated  whether  he  had  worked  with 
or  without  pay  the  previous  week,  what  kind  of  work  he  had  done 
each  day,  how  long  it  took  him,  and  how  much  his  daily  earnings 
were. 

Later  an  intensive  study  was  made  of  161  boys  in  De  Witt  Clinton 
High  School  covering  the  two  vacation  months,  July  and  August,  and 
the  first  two  months  of  the  school  year,  September  and  October. 

Number  of  Students  Working 

Because  of  irregular  programs,  absence,  and  refusal  to  co-operate,  it 
was  impossible  to  secure  returns  from  the  total  registration  of  the 
schools  studied. 

In  Wadleigh  High  School  returns  from  the  students  were  especially 
poor,  and  but  53  per  cent  of  the  girls  in  the  classes  studied  gave  the 
information  requested.  Special  effort  would  doubtless  have  resulted 
in  more  complete  returns,  but  the  small  number  of  girls  working  did 
not  seem  to  justify  the  expenditure  of  additional  time.  Of  the  1,322 
in  this  school  who  filled  out  the  cards  58  reported  that  they  were 
working  for  money,  and  206  that  they  were  working  outside  of  school 
hours  but  were  receiving  no  wages  in  return  for  their  work.  In 
Eastern  District  High  School  where  the  students  filled  out  the  cards 
much  more  generally  than  in  Wadleigh,  the  number  of  girls  working 

[141 


for  wages  was  but  69  out  of  the  1,256  who  gave  returns.  In  Wad- 
leigh  4.4  per  cent  of  the  girls  reporting  were  working  for  wages,  while 
in  Eastern  District  the  percentage  was  5.5.  Positions  for  girls  Satur- 
days and  after  school  hours  are  doubtless  more  difficult  to  find  and 
are  not  so  varied  as  ii^  the  case  of  boys.  In  Wadleigh  High  School 
15.6  per  cent,  while  at  Eastern  District  361,  or  28.7  per  cent,  of  the 
girls  were  working  at  home  without  receiving  pay.  These  girls  are 
doing  housework  or  assisting  in  parents'  offices  and  stores.  In 
Eastern  District  High  School  115,  or  17.3  per  cent,  of  the  boys  were 
working  for  wages  during  the  week  studied  as  compared  with  386, 
or  14  per  cent,  in  De  Witt  Clinton.  Of  the  Eastern  District  boys, 
26.8  per  cent  were  working  without  wages,  and  but  18  per  cent  of  the 
De  Witt  Clinton  boys  were  in  this  class.  The  investigation  of  the 
work  done  during  this  one  week  showed  that  from  20  per  cent  of  the 
girls  in  Wadleigh  to  44  per  cent  of  the  Eastern  District  boys  were 
doing  some  work  outside  of  school  hours  either  with  or  without  pay. 

This  data,  it  must  be  remembered,  were  the  results  of  a  study 
covering  but  one  week  in  the  spring  of  1915.  This  was  a  school  week 
and  the  data  are  not  indicative  of  conditions  during  vacation  periods. 
In  order  to  determine  to  what  extent  students  work  during  the  sum- 
mer this  question  was  included  in  the  study  of  the  161  boys  in  De 
Witt  Clinton  High  School.  These  boys  were  interviewed  during  No- 
vember, 1915.  The  questionnaire  used  in  these  interviews  with 
161  students  in  De  Witt  Clinton  High  School,  a  copy  of  which  will 
be  found  in  the  appendix,  covered  the  vacation  months  of  July  and 
August  and  the  school  months  of  September  and  October,  1915. 
These  161  students  were  as  nearly  a  random  selection  from  the  student 
body  in  De  Witt  Clinton  High  School  as  it  seemed  possible  to  make.1 
The  method  of  selecting  them  has  been  previously  explained.  It  is 
possible  that  in  a  few  cases  boys  may  have  come  to  interview  the 
investigator  at  their  own  request.  Some  of  these  boys  were  employed 

1  In  order  to  determine  to  what  extent  this  group  of  161  boys  represented  the 
student  body  of  De  Witt  Clinton  High  School,  the  nationality  of  the  students 
comprising  the  group  of  161  studied  was  compared  with  the  nationality  of  the 
2,731  who  had  been  studied  previously  and  who  represented  88  per  cent  of  the 
average  attendance  in  the  seven  upper  classes,  the  only  classes  from  which  data 

[15] 


and  desired  to  give  information  about  their  work.  On  the  other 
hand,  some  of  the  boys  were  under  the  impression  that  an  effort 
was  being  made  to  find  positions  for  boys,  and  in  two  or  three  cases 
boys  not  at  work  who  wanted  something  to  do  came  to  apply  for  a 
position.  Of  the  161  boys  interviewed  in  De  Witt  Clinton  104,  or 
65  per  cent,  had  been  working  the  previous  summer  either  for  wages 
or  at  home  without  pay.  Eighty-three,  or  52  per  cent,  had  been 
working  for  wages. 

This  study  of  161  boys  gave  a  more  representative  picture  of  the 
amount  of  self-support  among  high  school  students  during  the  school 
year  than  the  study  of  one  week's  activities  made  the  previous  spring, 
as  it  covered  two  months  of  the  school  year  and  was  also  made  under 
direct  supervision  of  the  investigator.  Of  these  161  boys  91,  or  56 
per  cent,  had  been  earning  wages  at  some  time  during  the  four 
months.  In  addition  there  were  28,  or  17  per  cent,  who  had  worked 
without  receiving  pay.  A  total,  therefore,  of  73  per  cent  of  the 
group  studied  had  been  working.  In  this  special  group  the  week 
before  the  investigation  there  were  49,  or  30  per  cent,  of  the  boys  at 
work  for  wages,  and  44,  or  27  per  cent,  working  without  wages. 

There  is  considerable  difference  in  the  results  of  the  two  studies, 
both  made  in  De  Witt  Clinton  High  School.  So  far  as  the  investi- 
gator was  able  to  ascertain,  both  studies  were  made  at  a  period  which 
was  neither  particularly  favorable  nor  particularly  unfavorable  for 
securing  work.  In  Accounting  for  the  discrepancy  in  the  results  it 


were  secured.    The  results  shown  below  indicate  that  at  least  from  the  standpoint 
of  nationality  the  group  was  very  representative. 


BIRTHPLACE  OF 

PER  CENT  OF 

PER  CENT  OF 

f"lwrfcTTi>    r»w    9  7^1 

GROUP  OF  161 

Father 

Child 

VjrROUP    OF    ^,/ol 

STUDIED 

INTERVIEWED 

United  States 

United  States 

15 

14 

Russia 

United  States 

26 

22 

Russia 

Russia 

16 

16 

Italy 

United  States 

3 

3 

Italy 

Italy 

1 

1 

Austria 

United  States 

18 

20 

Austria 

Austria 

7 

14 

16 


must  be  remembered  that  the  latter  study  in  which  the  larger  figures 
were  secured  was  made  through  a  personal  interview  with  the  student, 
that  there  was  opportunity  to  explain  to  the  boy  the  purpose  of  the 
study,  and  that  each  boy  was  told  that  the  data  secured  were  to  be 
kept  in  the  possession  of  the  investigator,  no  teacher  or  other  person 
having  access  to  them.  On  the  other  hand,  the  former  and  larger 
study  had  been  made  through  the  schools,  the  cards  being  distributed 
and  collected  by  the  class-room  teachers.  One  factor  in  reducing  the 
percentage  of  boys  who  reported  themselves  as  working  in  the  study 
made  through  the  teachers,  was  unwillingness  on  the  part  of  some  of 
the  pupils  to  have  the  fact  of  their  employment  known.1 

In  an  investigation2  made  entirely  independent  of  this  study  early 
in  1917  of  amount  of  work  done  by  pupils  in  De  Witt  Clinton  High 

1  This  is  illustrated  in  the  following  cases: 

Case  No.  87.  Born  in  Russia,  seventeen  years  of  age,  sixteen  of  which  have 
been  spent  here,  in  the  sixth  semester  of  the  high  school,  this  young  man  is  em- 
ployed three  hours  each  school  day  and  twelve  hours  Saturdays  and  Sundays  as 
an  optician.  In  summer  he  works  twelve  hours  a  day.  He  receives  $15  a  week  in 
summer  and  $9.00  in  the  school  term.  He  lives  in  a  flat  of  four  rooms  and  has 
no  older  brothers  and  sisters.  His  father  is  a  cloak  maker  and  does  not  own  his 
business.  The  family  speak  Yiddish  at  home.  He  stated  that  there  was  no  time 
for  recreation.  He  has  been  working  since  he  was  nine  years  old  when  he  began 
at  $1.40  a  week.  He  did  not  want  to  give  the  information  requested  and  would 
answer  the  questions  only  when  assured  that  his  name  would  not  appear  on  the 
answers  and  that  the  information  would  never  be  used  in  connection  with  his 
name.  Even  then  he  said  that  he  preferred  not  to  give  the  name  and  address  of  his 
employer. 

Case  No.  124.  This  boy  was  born  in  New  York  sixteen  years  ago  of  Russian 
parents.  He  is  in  the  seventh  semester  of  the  high  school.  His  father  is  a  dentist 
and  the  family  live  in  an  eight-room  apartment.  Their  home  language  is  English. 
He  plays  in  an  orchestra  in  one  of  the  largest  hotels  in  the  city  from  half-past  ten 
to  two  o'clock  each  evening.  During  the  summer  he  played  seven  hours  each 
day.  In  summer  he  received  $50  a  week;  in  winter  he  is  paid  $75.  He  belongs 
to  a  union  and  was  very  anxious  that  this  information  should  be  absolutely 
confidential  as  he  felt  that  were  the  facts  known  he  might  not  be  able  to  keep  his 
position.  In  the  three  days  program  given  the  interviewer  he  reported  as  recrea- 
tion, attending  a  theater  on  Saturday,  playing  in  a  symphony  orchestra  on  Sun- 
day, and  spending  several  hours  on  the  street  Sunday  afternoon.  He  also  men- 
tioned the  fact  that  at  home  he  played  cards  frequently. 

2  This  investigation  was  made  under  the  supervision  of  Mr.  Edward  C.  Delaney, 
of  De  Witt  Clinton,  who  has  organized  the  office  in  which  boys  are  placed  in  half- 
time  positions. 

2  [171 


School,  returns  were  received  from  4,483  boys,  or  all  the  students  on 
the  register  the  second  week  in  January,  1917.  Boys  who  worked 
but  two  or  three  weeks  or  earned  less  than  $10  during  the  year  are 
not  included  in  the  number  of  "  working  boys."  The  boys  who  were 
working  for  their  parents  are  not  counted  as  working  boys.  There 
were  1,437  boys  who  received  pay  for  their  work  during  the  year, 
or  32  per  cent  of  the  group.1 

The  English  department  of  De  Witt  Clinton  High  School  in  1914 
found  of  3,431  students  770,  or  22  per  cent,  earning  money  at  some 
time  during  the  year.2 

NUMBER  OF  STUDENTS  WORKING 


NUMBER  STUDIED 

NUMBER 
WORKING 

FOR 

WAGES 

PER  CENT 

NUMBER 
WORKING 
WITHOUT 
WAGES 

PER  CENT 

Eastern  District  
Spring,  1915  

Boys  ....  1664 
Girls          1256 

115 
69 

17.3 
5.5 

178 

361 

26.8 

28.7 

Wadleigh 
Spring,  1915  
De  Witt  Clinton 
Spring,  1915  
°De  Witt  Clinton 
1914  

Girls  ....  1322 
Boys.  .  ..2731 
Boys  .  .  .  .  3431 

58 
386 
770 

4.4 
14 
22 

206 

485 

15.6 
18 

6De  Witt  Clinton 
1917 

Boys         4483 

1437 

35C 

De  Witt  Clinton 
November,  1915     ... 

Boys        .   161 

91 

56 

28 

17 

0  Study  made  by  the  English  Department. 
b  Study  made  by  Mr.  Delaney. 

0  Mr.  Delaney's  figure  corrected  to  correspond  with  results  of  other  studies 
made,  by  excluding  students  in  first  semester. 

The  Working  Boy  and  His  Position 

There  are  three  problems  in  connection  with  the  boy  who  is  wholly 
or  in  part  supporting  himself,  which  it  is  here  proposed  to  discuss. 

First,  the  economic  status  of  the  working  boy  is  a  fundamental 
problem.     Is  the  boy  who  is  working  doing  so  because  he  is  obliged 

1  If  Mr.  Delaney  had  omitted  the  first  semester  students,  as  was  done  in  the 
two  investigations  previously  made,  he  would  have  had  1,177  students  out  of 
3,360  working,  or  35  per  cent. 

2  From  a  manuscript  report  of  this  study. 

[181 


to?  Do  boys  who  are  working  come  from  poorer  families  than  boys 
who  are  not  ?  What  do  rent  and  size  of  apartments,  father's  business, 
and  educational  opportunities  of  brothers  and  sisters  indicate  with 
regard  to  the  status  of  working  boys  ? 

Second,  the  problem  which  has  to  do  with  the  boy's  position.  Is 
he  required  to  devote  too  many  hours  to  the  work?  Does  the  work 
interfere  with  his  recreation?  Is  he  well  paid  for  his  efforts  or  is 
there  a  tendency  to  exploit  him? 

Third,  the  problem  which  deals  with  the  educational  value  of  the 
work  the  boy  is  doing.  What  kind  of  work  are  students  doing?  Is 
there  any  relation  between  this  work  and  the  work  the  student  will 
later  enter? 

Economic  Status  of  Family 

Data  regarding  the  economic  status  of  the  families  of  working  boys 
were  secured  through  the  answers  to  questionnaires  which  dealt 
indirectly  with  financial  condition.  Students  were  asked  the  ques- 
tion, What  do  you  do  with  your  money?  The  answers  to  the  question 
asked  on  the  card  indicate  that  a  large  number  of  students  are  working 
after  school  hours  in  order  to  support  themselves  in  part  or  wholly. 
In  De  Witt  Clinton  High  School  1 13  boys,  or  29  per  cent,  of  the  boys 
working  for  money  reported  that  they  were  using  their  earnings  in  sup- 
porting themselves.  Twenty-four  boys,  or  21  per  cent,  of  those  work- 
ing for  money,  and  19  girls,  or  27  per  cent,  of  those  working  for  money 
in  Eastern  District  High  School,  and  5  girls  in  Wadleigh  gave  similar 
reports.  In  De  Witt  Clinton  some  of  the  replies  were,  "  Enable  me 
to  go  to  school";  "Self-support,  no  help  from  home";  "Keep  up 
home";  "Support  mother  and  brother";  "Support  family  and 
myself  " ;  "  Support  home."  There  were  238  boys  in  De  Witt  Clinton 
and  57  in  Eastern  District,  and  51  girls  in  Eastern  District  and  23  in 
Wadleigh,  who  reported  that  their  earnings  were  used  for  incidentals 
including  school  expenses,  car  fare,  clothing,  books,  lunch,  etc.  A 
few  of  the  students  were  saving  their  money.  (28  boys  in  De  Witt 
Clinton  and  21  in  Eastern  District  were  doing  this.)  In  each  of  the 
two  schools  5  boys  gave  as  the  reason,  preparation  for  college  ex- 
penses. Five  girls  in  Eastern  District  and  3  in  Wadleigh  reported 
that  they  save  their  money. 

f  191 


In  the  group  of  161  boys  studied  in  De  Witt  Clinton  High  School 
there  were  but  46  of  the  91  earning  money  who  answered  the  question 
regarding  use  of  their  money.  Ten  of  these  were  self-supporting, 
and  3  of  these  10  not  only  supported  themselves  but  supported 
their  families  wholly  or  in  part;  22  used  their  money  for  general  and 
school  purposes.  Nine  boys  wrote  that  they  saved  their  money,  and 
of  these  2  reported  that  they  were  saving  their  earnings  for  college 
expenses.  Finally  5  boys  reported  that  they  turned  their  money 
over  to  their  parents. 

That  the  necessity  for  self-support  is  a  considerable  factor  in 
elimination  from  school  is  indicated  by  the  results  of  numerous 
studies.  Estimates  of  the  importance  of  economic  pressure  as  a 
cause  of  elimination  vary  from  20  per  cent  to  85  per  cent.1  The  diffi- 
culty of  estimating  the  proportion  of  students  leaving  school  because 
their  families  need  their  earnings  is  apparent  as  soon  as  an  attempt  is 
made  to  reduce  economic  pressure  to  definite  terms  with  which 
another  investigator  can  work  and  secure  similar  results.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  the  statement  of  the  child  and  his  parent  obtained 
during  a  visit  at  the  home  must  for  the  present  be  relied  upon. 

Mary  Flexner  found  apparently  that  376  [526- 150]  of  a  group  of  666 
children,  or  56  per  cent,  between  the  ages  of  fourteen  and  sixteen  had 
gone  to  work  because  their  earnings  were  needed  at  home.2  Helen 
T.  Wooley  found  that  "only  27  per  cent  of  the  families  were  believed 
to  require  the  earnings  of  the  children,  while  73  per  cerft  had  ap- 
parently no  such  economic  need.3  She  was  studying  a  group  of  650 
families  in  which  native-born  white  children  had  left  school  at  the  age 


1  These  studies  deal  generally  with  children  in  the  grammar  grades. 

2  A  Plea  for  Vocational  Training,  Survey,  Volume  XXII,  p.  650.    Miss  Flexner 
states  that  school  records  give  526  children  as  leaving  school  from  necessity,  and 
that  interviews  in  their  homes  developed  that  150  children  left  school  for  reasons 
other  than  economic  "thus  reducing  the  number  of  those  whose  earnings  were 
needed  at  home  from  526  to  380."    The  latter  figure  is  apparently  an  error. 
Mary  Van  Kleeck  in  citing  this  study,  Working  Girls  in  Evening  Schools,  page  106, 
states  "that  apparently  380  out  of  a  total  of  530,  or  72  per  cent,  left  school  because 
of  economic  pressure."    Miss  Flexner 's  study  indicates  that  there  were  666  stu- 
dents in  the  group  rather  than  526,  or  the  530  Miss  Van  Kleeck  used. 

8  Charting  Childhood  in  Cincinnati,  Survey,  Volume  XXX,  p.  601. 

[201 


of  fourteen.  Mary  Van  Kleeck  reports  that  of  108  girls  who  had  left 
school  before  the  age  of  sixteen,  "Exactly  half  the  number  said  that 
they  left  school  to  go  to  work  because  their  earnings  were  needed  at 
home."1  C.  D.  Jarvis  found  that  of  699  students  who  undoubtedly 
would  leave  school  during  the  year,  278,  or  40  per  cent,  were  leaving 
because  " family  needs  help."2  In  the  report  of  the  Superintendent 
of  Schools  in  St.  Louis3  there  is  an  analysis  of  the  causes  of  3,567  cases 
of  elimination  in  the  public  schools.  "Poverty"  and  "increasing 
the  family  income"  are  assigned  as  the  reason  3,041  children,  or 
85.3  per  cent  of  all,  had  for  dropping  out  of  school.  In  a  study  made 
by  Dr.  Anna  Y.  Reed  in  Seattle,  Seattle  Children  in  School  and  In- 
dustry, published  in  January,  1915,  economic  pressure  is  said  to  have 
been  the  cause  for  leaving  school  in  the  case  of  132  out  of  486  elimina- 
tions among  high  school  boys  and  62  of  336  eliminations  among  high 
school  girls.  According  to  this  study  24  per  cent  of  the  students 
leaving  high  school  left  because  of  economic  pressure.  In  a  study 
made  in  Massachusetts,  "The  report  of  those  who  left  school  from 
necessity  is  2,450  out  of  5,459, "  or  44  per  cent.4  Alice  P.  Barrows 
found  that  "Only  20  per  cent  of  the  families  visited  had  a  per  capita 
income  of  under  $1.50,  and  on  the  basis  of  the  government  standard 
of  income  only  20  per  cent  of  the  children  had  to  leave  on  account  of 
economic  pressure."5  Ernest  L.  Talbert  states  that  of  217  families 
represented  "118  gave  the  economic  cause  as  determining  the  leaving 
of  school;  31  of  these  were  found  to  be  entirely  able  to  send  their 
children  to  school,"  which  leaves  40  per  cent  who  withdrew  from 
school  for  financial  reasons.6  In  another  study  of  605  children,  177, 

1  Working  Girls  in  Evening  Schools,  p.  110. 

2  Work  of  School  Children  during  Out-of-School  Hours,  C.  D.  Jarvis.    Bulletin, 
Bureau  of  Education,  1917,  No.  20,  p.  27. 

3  Superintendent's  report,  St.  Louis,  1914-15,  p.  417. 

4  Report  of  the  Commission  on  Industrial  and  Technical  Education,  Massa- 
chusetts, April,  1906,  p.  86. 

6  Report  of  Vocational  Guidance  Survey,  Alice  P.  Barrows,  1912.  Reprinted 
from  the  14th  Annual  Report  of  the  City  Superintendent  of  Schools,  New  York, 
p.  7. 

8  Opportunities  in  School  and  Industry  for  Children  of  the  Stock  Yards  Dis- 
trict, Ernest  L.  Talbert,  p.  39. 

[211 


or  29.3  per  cent,  were  found  to  have  left  school  because  their  earnings 
were  necessary  to  family  support.1 

In  the  present  study  additional  data  bearing  on  the  economic  status 
of  families  of  working  boys  were  obtained  in  answer  to  questions  re- 
garding size  of  apartments,  education  of  brothers  and  sisters,  and 
ownership  of  father's  business.  It  is,  of  course,  realized  that  size  of 
apartments  in  New  York  may  have  less  to  do  with  the  wealth  of  a 
family  than  location,  and  that  ownership  of  business  means  little. 
The  significance  of  these  facts  becomes  of  importance  as  they  re- 
inforce one  another  by  pointing  to  the  same  conclusion.  In  the  case 
of  rents  of  apartments  gathered  by  house-to-house  visits,  it  is  believed 
a  very  definite  indication  of  financial  status  is  presented. 

Economic  Position  of  the  Family  as  Measured  by  the  Size  of  the 
Apartment. — In  the  questionnaire  used  with  the  special  group  in 
De  Witt  Clinton  High  School,  each  student  was  asked: 

Do  you  live  in  a  flat  or  a  private  house?     If  a  flat,  how  many  rooms? 

Most  of  the  students  answered  this  question.  Of  91  students  who 
were  working  for  money,  10  lived  in  private  houses  and  72  in  apart- 
ments. Nine  did  not  answer  the  question.  There  were  42  boys  who 
were  not  working,  and  of  these,  8  lived  in  private  houses  and  2  failed 
to  answer  the  question.  The  boys  who  were  or  had  been  working 
for  money  during  the  preceding  weeks  lived  in  apartments  averaging 
4.99  rooms  each;  the  boys  who  had  not  been  working  during  the  four 
months  studied  lived  in  apartments  averaging  5.68  rooms  in  size. 
The  boys  who  were  working  ten  hours  or  longer  per  week  at  the  time 
the  study  was  made  lived  in  apartments  averaging  4.69  rooms  each. 
There  were  but  23  boys  in  this  group.  These  figures  indicate  that 
boys  who  do  no  work  live  in  apartments  which  average  a  room  larger 
than  boys  who  are  working  for  wages  ten  hours  or  more  per  week. 

Father's  Business. — Each  student  was  asked  to  give  his  father's 
occupation  and  state  whether  the  business  in  which  his  father  was 
engaged  belonged  to  the  family  or  not.  The  occupation  itself  had 
little  significance.  A  tailor  may  be  the  owner  of  a  large  shop,  or  a 


1  Report  on  Condition  of  Women  and  Child  Wage-Earners  in  the  United  States, 
Volume  VII,  p.  46,  1910. 

[22] 


SIZE  OF  APARTMENTS 


BOYS  WORKING 
FOR  MONEY 

BOYS  WORKING 
WITHOUT  MONEY 

BOYS 
NOT  WORKING 

No  answer  

9 

2 

2 

2  rooms                           .... 

1 

1 

3          

7 

3 

1 

4                               

23 

4 

4 

5                             

14 

7 

7 

6                         

19 

5 

10 

7                   

5 

4 

6 

8         

2 

1 

3 

9          

1 

Private  house                

10 

2 

8 

Total 

91 

28 

42 

man  engaged  in  making  garments.  The  data  indicate  that  so  far  as 
this  group  is  concerned,  the  father  of  a  boy  who  is  not  working  for 
money  is  more  likely  to  own  his  own  business  than  the  parent  of  a  boy 
who  is  working. 


BOYS 

BOYS 

DOES  PARENT  OWN 
BUSINESS? 

WORKING 

FOR 

PER  CENT 

WORKING 

WITHOUT 

PER  CENT 

BOYS  NOT 
WORKING 

PER  CENT 

WAGES 

WAGES 

Yes                

33 

36 

21 

75 

19 

45 

No         

39 

43 

4 

14 

17 

40 

No  answer  

19 

21 

3 

11 

6 

15 

Of  the  boys  who  are  working  ten  hours  or  more  a  week,  13  have 
fathers  who  own  their  own  business,  1 1  have  fathers  who  do  not,  and 
6  do  not  answer  the  question. 

The  high  proportion  of  boys  working  ten  hours  or  more  whose 
fathers  own  their  own  business  may  be  due  to  the  small  size  of  the 
group,  or  to  the  fact  that  they  come  from  families  owning  small 
stores.  The  latter  fact  doubtless  explains  the  75  per  cent  of  boys 
working  without  wages  whose  fathers  own  their  own  business.  When 
the  family  owns  a  store  there  is  abundant  opportunity  to  assist  in  it, 
and  a  few  hours  of  work  a  week  was  reported  on  the  card  frequently 
in  such  cases. 

Ownership  of  business,  as  has  been  previously  said,  has  compara- 
tively little  significance  by  itself.  It  may  mean  ownership  of  a  push 

[23] 


cart  or  a  small  East  Side  store.  It  is  even  of  less  value  because  so 
many  of  the  parents  of  the  students  studied  were  Russian  Jews,  among 
whom  there  seems  to  be  a  very  strong  tendency  to  begin  some  small 
business  enterprise  for  themselves  as  soon  as  a  little  capital  is 
accumulated. 

Birthplace  and  Self-Support. — The  birthplace  of  a  student  may  indi- 
cate something  regarding  his  economic  status.  In  general,  the  immi- 
grant recently  arrived  is  having  a  greater  financial  struggle  than  is  the 
second  generation.  The  study  showed  that  children  born  abroad 
were  more  likely  to  have  to  work  than  children  born  in  this  country 
of  parents  born  abroad.  Families  which  have  recently  immigrated 
are  apparently  financially  unable  to  meet  the  expense  of  educating 
their  children  without  some  assistance  from  the  boy  himself. 


EASTERN  DISTRICT 

DE  WITT  CLINTON 

Boys  born  abroad  

195 

656 

Working  for  wages  

42 

144 

Per  cent  

22 

22 

Boys  born  in  United  States  

460 

1373 

Working  for  wages  

72 

191 

Per  cent  

16 

14 

This  difference  is  especially  noteworthy  in  the  large  group  of  Rus- 
sian Jews  in  De  Witt  Clinton  High  School!  In  this  institution  a  boy 
born  in  Russia  is  twice  as  likely  to  be  self-supporting  wholly  or  in 
part  as  a  boy  born  in  the  United  States  of  Russian  parents.  The 
following  table  shows  the  relation  between  birthplace  and  self-sup- 
port in  the  case  of  boys  working  for  wages: 


BIRTHPLACE  OF 

EASTERN  DISTRICT 

DE  WITT  CLINTON 

Boy 

Father 

Number 
in 
School 

Number 
Work- 
ing 

Per  Cent 

Number 
in 
School 

Number 
Work- 
ing 

Per  Cent 

United  States  .  . 
United  States  .  . 
Russia  
United  States  .  . 
Austria.  ...... 
United  States  .  . 
Italy 

United  States 
Russia 
Russia 
Austria 
Austria 
Italy 
Italy 

30 
244 
137 
100 
26 
17 
7 

0 
44 
30 
16 
2 
3 
2 

0 
18 
22 
16 

8 
18 
29 

408 

696 
435 
473 

188 
80 
36 

49 
71 
97 
56 
41 
15 
6 

12 
10 
22 
12 
22 
19 
17 

24 


The  probability  is  that  the  economic  status  of  the  Russian  Jew  in 
one  generation  has  improved  to  such  an  extent  that  the  boy  can  be 
sent  to  school  without  having  to  look  for  a  position  where  he  can  earn 
something  to  add  to  the  family  income.  The  same  thing  holds  true 
of  the  group  of  Austrian  origin  in  De  Witt  Clinton  High  School. 

An  examination  of  the  data  of  the  boys  who  are  working  without 
wages  shows  that  there  is  a  larger  per  cent  in  this  group  born  in  the 
United  States  of  Austrian  or  Russian  fathers  than  in  the  group  working 
for  wages.  This  may  well  indicate  that  the  longer  residence  of  these 
families  in  America  has  resulted  in  savings  which  have  permitted  the 
opening  of  a  small  business  in  which  boys  work.  This  may  also  ex- 
plain in  part  the  75  per  cent  of  boys  working  without  wages  whose 
fathers  own  their  own  business. 


TABLE  SHOWING  BIRTHPLACE  OF  BOYS  WORKING  WITHOUT 

WAGES 


BIRTHPLACE  OP 

EASTERN  DISTRICT 

DE  WITT  CLINTON 

Boy 

Father 

Number 
in 
School 

Number 
Work- 
ing 

Per 

Cent 

Number 
in 
School 

Number 
Work- 
ing 

Per 
Cent 

United  States  
United  States  .... 
Russia  
United  States  .... 
Austria  

United  States 
Russia 
Russia 
Austria 
Austria 
Italy 
Italy 

30 
244 
137 
100 
26 
17 
7 

10 
59 
32 
22 
4 
4 
1 

33 
24 
23 
22 
15 
23 
14 

408 
696 
435 
473 
188 
80 
36 

32 
130 
79 
83 
29 
14 
15 

8 
19 
18 
18 
15 
18 
42 

United  States  
Italy 

Education  of  Brothers  and  Sisters. — Each  of  the  161  students  inter- 
viewed in  De  Witt  Clinton  High  School  was  asked  to  state  the  num- 
ber of  older  brothers  and  sisters  he  had,  and  the  grade  of  each  on 
leaving  school.  The  91  boys  of  the  group  who  had  been  working  for 
money  at  some  time  during  the  previous  four  months  reported  57 
brothers  and  66  sisters.  The  42  boys  who  had  done  no  work  reported 
21  brothers  and  33  sisters.  Among  the  older  brothers  and  sisters  of  the 
group  working  for  wages  there  were  73,  or  59  per  cent,  who  had  finished 
elementary  school.  The  group  of  boys  not  working  had  47  brothers 
and  sisters,  or  87  per  cent,  who  had  finished  the  elementary  school. 

[251 


Students  working  ten  hours  or  more  a  week  for  wages  at  the  time 
the  study  was  made  reported  17  older  brothers  and  21  older  sisters. 
Thirteen  brothers  and  11  sisters  had  graduated  from  the  elementary 
school.  Three  of  these  brothers  had  gone  on  into  college  or  normal 
school,  and  one  of  the  sisters  had  entered  high  school.  Sixty-two  per 
cent  of  the  brothers  and  sisters  of  students  working  ten  hours  or  longer 
had  graduated  from  public  school,  11  per  cent  from  high  school,  and* 
but  8  per  cent  had  entered  highel*  institutions.  The  data  indicate 
that  in  so  far  as  educational  opportunities  measure  economic  status, 
the  boys  who  were  not  working  were  from  families  with  more  money 
than  the  boys  who  were  working. 

Working  boys  show  a  percentage  of  brothers  who  finish  the  ele- 
mentary school  not  much  lower  than  that  of  brothers  of  non-working 
boys.  This  is  63  per  cent  in  the  first  case  and  but  75  per  cent  in  the 
second.  However,  a  much  larger  percentage  of  non-working  boys' 
than  of  working  boys'  sisters  graduated  from  the  elementary  school, 
88  per  cent  in  the  first  case  and  56  per  cent  in  the  second.  The 
working  boys'  families  are  apparently  not  able  to  keep  their  daughters 
in  school  as  long  as  are  the  families  of  boys  not  working.  Brothers  of 
working  boys,  however,  are  able  to  be  also  in  part  self-supporting  and 
earn  their  way  through  school.  Therefore  the  per  cent  of  brothers 
of  working  boys  graduating  from  elementary  school  is  more  nearly 
that  of  brothers  of  boys  who  are  not  working. 

Rent  of  Apartments. — In  New  York  where,  as  it  has  been  said,  the 
size  of  an  apartment  is  of  little  significance  in  measuring  the  economic 
position  of  a  family  because  so  much  depends  upon  the  location  of  the 
apartment,  and  where  ownership  of  business  among  the  great  in- 
dustrial and  commercial  organizations  has  little  meaning,  a  better 
index  of  economic  standing  is  the  rent  paid  for  an  apartment.  The 
unreliability  of  information  when  furnished  by  the  student  himself 
made  it  necessary  to  secure  the  facts  through  some  other  means.  An 
investigator  was  sent  to  the  addresses  which  boys  had  given  on  their 
cards,  and  through  this  means  the  rents  were  secured  for  36  boys  who 
were  earning  money  and  27  boys  who  were  not  working  during  the 
four  months  preceding  the  investigation,  two  of  which  had  been  vaca- 

[26] 


tion  months.  The  investigator  knew  the  size  of  the  apartment  as 
given  by  the  boy  and  with  this  information  asked  the  janitor  of  each 
building  visited  the  rate  for  an  apartment  of  that  size.  The  investi- 
gator knew  many  of  the  boys  personally  and  was  in  most  cases  able 
to  check  up  items  regarding  the  size  of  apartments.  In  but  one  case 
did  he  fail  to  secure  the  information,  and  that  was  where  the  boy  had 
given  the  address  of  his  employer  instead  of  his  own. 

Boys  who  were  working  for  wages  were  living  in  apartments  which 
rented  for  from  $9.00  to  $63  a  month.  Boys  who  were  not  working 
were  living  in  apartments  for  which  from  $8.00  to  $100  a  month  was 
paid.  Boys  who  were  not  working  came  from  families  which  paid 
an  average  of  $11.60  a  month  more  for  their  apartments  than  do 
the  families  of  boys  who  were  working.  Table  on  page  28  shows  the 
relation  between  the  distribution  of  rents  of  working  boys  and  boys 
who  were  not  working. 

The  students  who  were  working  while  attending  school  came  from 
families  lower  in  the  economic  scale  than  boys  who  were  not  working. 
Many  of  the  students  were  kept  in  school  by  their  own  earnings.  It 
was  necessary  for  them  to  earn  if  they  were  to  continue  their  educa- 
tion. The  remunerative  employment  in  which  they  were  engaged, 
outside  of  school  hours,  helped  to  keep  the  already  large  proportion 
of  students  leaving  school  because  of  economic  pressure  from  in- 
creasing. This  investigation  strengthens  one  in  the  opinion  that 
there  is  often  a  great  struggle  to  secure  an  education  both  on  the 
part  of  the  child  and  his  family.  Born  abroad  or  coming  from  families 
which  have  immigrated  from  countries  without  free  schools  or  where 
race  prejudice  prevented  their  attending  public  schools,  these  chil- 
dren by  the  hundred  grasp  the  opportunities  offered  them  here  fre- 
quently at  the  expenditure  of  great  effort  and  sacrifice.  The  rents 
many  of  them  pay  indicate  the  poverty  from  which  they  come. 

Data  of  this  sort  emphasize  the  care  needed  in  outlining  a  curric- 
ulum for  such  students.  Most  of  those  studied  were  taking  the 
academic  courses,  Latin,  mathematics,  English,  history  and  science. 
Many  of  them  who  will  fail  of  their  aim  to  enter  college  will  thus  be 
thrown  into  life  with  a  smattering  of  a  number  of  subjects  for  which 
their  position  in  industry  will  find  little  use. 

[271 


RENTS  FOR  APARTMENTS  OF  BOYS  IN  DE  WITT  CLINTON 
HIGH  SCHOOL 


MONTHLY 
RENT 

BOYS  WORKING 
FOB  WAGES 

BOYS  NOT 
WORKING 

MONTHLY 
RENT 

BOYS  WORKING 
FOR  WAGES 

BOYS  NOT 
WORKING 

$8 

1 

$26 

3 

9 

1 

27 

1 

10 

1 

28 

2 

3 

12 

1 

29 

1 

13 

1 

30 

2 

1 

14 

1 

i 

32 

1 

2 

15 

2 

35 

2 

16 

1 

40 

1 

17 

1 

45 

2 

18 

6 

i' 

58 

i 

19 

4 

60 

i 

20 

3 

2 

63 

1 

22 

1 

65 

i' 

23 

. 

i' 

68 

1 

24 

1 

i 

100 

1 

QP 

Sea 

37 

26 

MONTHLY  RENT  OF 
BOYS  WORKING 
FOR  WAGES 

MONTHLY  RENT  OF 
BOYS  NOT  WORK- 
ING 

Average                           

$22.78 

$34.38 

Median                            

19.00° 

28.00 

1st  quartile  .          

17.50 

23.50 

3rd  quartile        .      

26.00 

35.00 

A.D.  from  median  

7.08 

12.61 

°In  a  study  of  3,000  families  applying  for  relief  in  the  Charity  Organization 
Society  of  the  City  of  New  York  between  January  1  and  September  30,  1916,  the 
median  rent  paid  was  between  $10  and  $11.99,  and  50  per  cent  of  the  families 
were  paying  from  $8.00  to  $14. 

In  Causes  of  the  Elimination  of  Students  in  the  Public  Secondary  Schools  in 
New  York  City,  by  J.  K.  Van  Denburg,  page  81,  the  median  rent  for  420  apart- 
ments of  students  was  from  $17.50  to  $22.50.  The  mode  was  $12.50  to  $17.50  and 
the  average  $29. 

That  many  of  these  boys  will  soon  leave  is  shown  by  the  data  on 
elimination  from  New  York  high  schools.  In  the  term  ending  June 
30,  1906,1  21.3  per  cent  were  eliminated,  and  .for  the  semester,  March 
to  May,  1916,  the  average  for  the  city  was  5.9  per  cent.2  The  present 


1  Van  Denburg,  Causes  of  the  Elimination  of  Students  in  the  Public  Secondary 
Schools  in  New  York  City,  pp.  11-12. 

2  Report  on  High  Schools  for  the  year  ending  July  31,  1916,  New  York  City. 

[28] 


investigation  showed  that  in  the  two  groups  studied  in  Eastern  Dis- 
trict and  in  De  Witt  Clinton  high  schools  there  was  more  elimination 
among  students  who  were  working  for  wages  than  among  others. 

The  Position 

The  facts  cited  indicate  that  there  are  many  families  in  which  it  is 
necessary  that  school  children  assist  in  earning  money,  and  that  a 
considerable  part  of  the  elimination  from  school  is  due  to  economic 
necessity.  Many  of  the  students  who  are  working  are  enabled  to 
attend  high  school  only  because  they  are  self-supporting. 

There  is,  however,  always  a  danger  that  in  the  case  of  these  ado- 
lescent boys  and  girls  too  many  hours  will  be  devoted  to  work,  and 
that  school  work  will  be  neglected  and  the  recreation  period  shortened. 
There  is  also  the  danger  that  these  young  people  who  must  earn,  but 
who  are  not  protected  by  union  organizations  or  by  the  child  labor 
laws,  may  be  exploited  by  their  employers.  In  the  following  section 
data  will  be  given  regarding  age,  the  number  of  hours  students  work, 
the  amount  of  recreation  working  boys  have,  and  the  wages  they 
receive. 

Wages  Received.— The  median  salary  of  372  boys  in  De  Witt  Clinton 
High  School  who  gave  their  earnings  during  the  school  week  studied 
was  $2.50,  and  50  per  cent  of  the  group  were  receiving  from  $1.50  to 
$3.75.  Across  the  East  River  in  Eastern  District,  positions  are 
apparently  not  so  remunerative,  and  the  median  wage  for  boys  is  but 
$1.501  with  quartiles  at  80  cents  and  $2.75.  The  De  Witt  Clinton 
boy  earns  more  than  the  Eastern  District  boy.  De  Witt  Clinton 
High  School  is  easily  accessible  to  the  business  sections  of  New  York, 
which  may  in  part  explain  the  difference. 

The  median  salary  per  hour  in  De  Witt  Clinton  is  18  cents,  with 
the  first  and  third  quartiles  at  9  and  33  cents.  In  Eastern  District 


1  In  Work  of  School  Children  During  Out-of-School  Hours,  by  C.  D.  Jarvis, 
Bulletin,  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Education,  1917,  No.  20,  p.  8,  is  the  statement  that  for 
3,846  children  in  the  sixth,  seventh  and  eighth  grades,  "the  average  weekly  earn- 
ings for  those  who  work  during  out-of-school  hours  amount  to  $1.51." 

[29] 


High  School  the  boys  are  earning  a  median  salary  of  25  cents  an  hour, 
with  quartiles  at  14  and  37  cents. 

Though  the  boy  in  De  Witt  Clinton  earns  approximately  a  dollar 
more  per  week  than  the  Eastern  District  boy,  yet  his  median  wage 
per  hour  is  6  cents  less,  and  his  average  wage  5  cents  less  than  that  of 
the  boy  across  the  river.  There  is  more  work  for  the  boy  to  do  in 
Manhattan,  but  the  pay  is  poorer.  In  some  cases  the  student  is 
paid  so  little  for  his  time  that  were  the  facts  known,  he  would  doubtless 
be  advised  to  discontinue  his  work  and  find  another  position.  One 
boy  who  was  working  nine  hours  a  day  seven  days  a  week  selling  candy 
in  a  theater  received  but  4  cents  an  hour. 

Both  groups  of  boys  were  earning  more  each  week  than  were  the 
girls  in  the  two  schools  from  which  data  were  collected.  In  Eastern 
District,  girls  had  for  the  week  studied  a  median  salary  of  $1.25,  with 
quartiles  at  50  cents  and  $2.50.  In  Wadleigh  the  median  salary  was 
$1.50,  with  half  the  girls  receiving  from  75  cents  to  $2.00  a  week.  In 
both  schools  the  median  wage  an  hour  for  girls  was  30  cents.  In 
Eastern  District  half  the  girls  were  receiving  from  11  to  50  cents  an 
hour,  and  in  Wadleigh  from  20  to  50  cents. 

The  higher  median  wage  an  hour  paid  to  girls  was  due  in  part  to 
the  fact  that  a  larger  proportion  of  the  girls  working  were  giving 
lessons.  A  majority  of  these  were  giving  music  lessons,  for  which 
they  received  50  cents  or  $1.00  an  hour.  Many  of  the  boys  were 
teaching  English  to  foreigners  and  frequently  received  25  cents  an 
hour  and  occasionally  50  cents. 

These  wages  do  not  seem  low  when  compared  with  the  wage  paid 
high  school  students  during  the  summer  vacation.  The  average 
weekly  wage  for  a  small  group  of  boys  in  De  Witt  Clinton  during  the 
summer  vacation  was  $6.00.  The  co-operative  students  in  New  York 
high  schools  for  the  week  ending  May  20,  1916,  earned  an  average 
salary  of  $2.86. 

There  are  many  high  school  boys  who  are  earning  comparatively 
high  wages  in  De  Witt  Clinton.  Of  372  boys  whose  weekly  wage  is 
known,  62,  or  16  per  cent,  were  earning  $5.00  or  more  a  week,  and  16 
of  these,  or  4  per  cent,  receive  $10  or  more.  One  young  fellow  owns 

[30] 


and  operates  his  own  restaurant  and  is  making  $56  a  week;  another 
plays  in  an  orchestra  in  a  popular  hotel  and  earns  $75  weekly.1 

Number  of  Hours  Worked. — One  of  the  greatest  dangers  arising 
from  the  outside  work  which  high  school  students  do,  is  in  the  long 
hours  some  of  them  are  required  to  work.  With  no  supervision  on  the 
part  of  the  school  or  the  state  over  their  work,  individual  employers 
and  parents  are  likely  to  require  an  unreasonable  amount  of  work 
done  outside  of  school  hours.  A  railway  mail  clerk  and  a  post-office 
clerk  were  giving  five  hours  to  high  school  work.  The  clerk  in  a 
telegraph  office  who  worked  from  5  p.m.  to  2  a.m.  every  day  in  the 
week  was  one  of  the  most  extreme  cases  found.2  In  De  Witt  Clinton 
High  School  the  median  number  of  hours  worked  by  boys  who  re- 
ported that  they  were  earning  wages  was  12,  while  the  quartiles  were 
6  and  21.  In  Eastern  District  High  School  the  median  number  of 
hours  worked  by  the  boys  was  7,  with  the  quartiles  at  3  and  16.  For 
girls  in  the  same  school  the  median  was  6  hours,  and  quartiles  at  3.5 
and  10,  while  in  Wadleigh  the  median  was  4.5,  with  quartiles  at  2 
and  10. 

Students  who  are  working  at  home  have  also  long  hours,  especially 
in  Eastern  District  and  De  Witt  Clinton  where  there  are  many  work- 
ing in  parents'  shops.  In  Wadleigh,  of  156  girls  who  furnished  the 
data  and  were  giving  an  hour  or  more  a  week  to  home  work,  151  were 
doing  some  form  of  housework — cooking,  dusting,  washing  dishes, 
or  minding  the  baby.  This  work  does  not  require  so  much  time 
apparently,  and  in  Wadleigh  the  girls  working  without  pay  are  giving 
a  median  of  four  hours  with  quartiles  at  2  and  8,  as  compared  with  the 
median  of  four  and  a  half  hours,  with  quartiles  at  2  and  10  of  girls 
who  are  earning  money. 

1  See  appendix  for  hourly  wage  distribution  tables. 

2  Case  No.  82.    A  Jewish  boy  who  has  been  employed  during  the  last  six  years 
in  a  telegraph  office  in  various  positions,  beginning  as  a  messenger.    He  is  eighteen 
years  of  age,  in  the  senior  class,  and  works  fifteen  hours  a  day  in  summer  and 
nine  hours  a  day  during  the  school  year.    He  is  self-supporting  and  able  to  save 
some  money  for  college.    He  lamented  the  fact  that  his  only  recreation  is  an  hour's 
practise  on  the  violin  each  day,  and  that  he  has  never  had  time  to  make  friends 
among  the  boys.    The  attention  of  some  of  his  teachers  was  called  to  the  case  and 
as  a  result  of  their  advice  he  dropped  his  work. 

[31] 


In  Eastern  District,  girls  working  without  pay  have  eight  as  a 
median  number  of  hours,  as  compared  with  six  hours  for  those  with 
pay,  and  for  boys  eight  hours  compared  with  seven  for  pay.  There 
were  9  boys  working  without  wages  in  Eastern  District  thirty  hours 
or  more  per  week,  and  in  every  case  they  were  clerking  in  parents' 
stores.  The  longest  period  of  work  in  a  week  was  seventy-one  hours, 
reported  by  a  girl  of  Eastern  District  High  School  who  was  nursing 
a  sick  mother.  The  girl  working  next  longest  was  " attending  store" 
fifty-five  hours  weekly. 

The  kind  of  work,  the  age  of  the  boy,  and  his  physical  condition 
are  such  important  factors  in  determining  the  length  of  time  he  should 
be  permitted  to  work  outside  of  school  hours,  that  a  statement  that  a 
boy  should  not  work  more  than  a  given  number  of  hours  per  week  can 
hardly  be  ventured.  Each  case  calls  for  study  and  decision  on  its 
own  merits.  It  would  seem,  however,  to  be  inadvisable  for  a  student 
who  is  spending  five  hours  a  day  in  high  school  to  work  twenty  hours 
or  more  a  week  at  any  occupation  unless  circumstances  were  very  ex- 
ceptional. In  De  Witt  Clinton  1 15  boys,  or  30  per  cent,  of  those  earning 
money  are  employed  twenty  hours  or  more  a  week;  in  Eastern  District 
20  boys  and  5  girls,  and  in  Wadleigh  6  girls  are  working  such  long  hours. 

The  next  problem  was  to  determine  to  what  extent  the  work  which 
students  are  doing  outside  of  school  hours  affects  their  recreation 
period. 

Recreation. — Of  the  group  of  161  students  at  De  Witt  Clinton 
High  School  questions  were  asked  regarding  the  kinds  of  recreation 
engaged  in  during  the  week  preceding  the  study  and  the  number  of 
times  each  kind  of  recreation  had  occurred.  Each  student  was  re- 
quested to  make  out  a  program  by  hours  of  his  activities  during  the 
Friday,  Saturday,  and  Sunday  preceding  the  investigation.  No 
special  mention  of  recreation  was  made  in  this  request  but  the  data 
have  been  used  to  determine  the  amount  of  time  the  students  devote 
to  recreation.  In  examining  the  results  of  the  questionnaire  the 
students  were  divided  into  two  groups — those  who  were  not  working 
and  those  who  were  working.  There  were  68  who  were  not  engaged 
in  any  kind  of  work  during  the  week  studied,  and  93  who  were  working 

[32] 


either  for  wages  or  without  wages.  This  latter  group  was  later 
divided  into  four  parts;  those  working  for  wages  ten  hours  or  more  a 
week  and  of  whom  there  were  30,  those  working  for  wages  less  than 
ten  hours  a  week,  19  in  number,  those  who  were  employed  at  home 
ten  hours  or  more  a  week,  and  those  working  at  home  for  less  than 
ten  hours  a  week.  There  were  20  and  24  in  the  last  two  groups 
respectively. 

The  questions  were  given  to  the  students  in  the  following  form: 
Check  below  recreations  you  have  had  the  past  week  giving  number 
of  times  engaged  in 

Movies  Clubs 

Theater  Gym  (outside  school  hours) 

Pool  or  billiard  hall  Swimming  pool 

Dance  hall  Athletic  field 

Walking  Games  at  home 

Name  any  other  engaged  in. 

The  different  kinds  of  recreation  engaged  in  during  the  week  pre- 
ceding the  investigation  were  first  tabulated.  This  was  done  without 
regard  to  the  number  of  times  any  one  form  of  recreation  occurred 
during  this  week.  All  students  who  were  working,  without  regard  to 
how  many  hours  they  were  employed  or  whether  they  were  receiving 
pay,  reported  an  average  of  4.1  different  kinds  of  recreation  in  the 
week.  Students  who  were  not  working  mentioned  4.4  kinds  of 
recreation  on  the  average.  All  students  who  were  employed  during 
this  week  for  ten  hours  or  more  with  or  without  pay  were  next  con- 
sidered. They  reported  3.3  kinds  of  recreation.  The  thirty  students 
who  were  employed  ten  hours  or  longer  for  pay,  however,  averaged 
but  2.6  kinds  of  recreation. 

The  hourly  programs  for  the  Friday,  Saturday,  and  Sunday  pre- 
ceding the  study  were  next  examined  and  the  number  of  different 
kinds  of  recreation  mentioned  tabulated  without  regard  to  the  num- 
ber of  times  any  one  kind  occurred  in  a  single  student's  program. 
Students  who  were  not  working  mentioned  an  average  of  4.51  kinds  of 

1  This  figure  for  three  days  is  greater  than  that  for  the  entire  week.  This  is  due 
to  the  fact  that  in  the  suggested  list  of  recreations  for  the  week,  visiting  and 
parties  were  not  included  but  were  reported  frequently  in  the  three  day  program. 

3  [33] 


recreation  during  these  three  days  especially  studied,  while  the  stu- 
dents who  were  working  reported  but  3  kinds.  Those  working  ten 
hours  or  more  a  week  gave  but  2.48  different  kinds  of  recreation, 
while  those  working  for  wages  ten  hours  or  more  averaged  2.53. 

In  the  hourly  program  for  three  days  each  student  mentioned  his 
activities  and  the  length  of  time  he  was  engaged  in  them.  From 
these  figures  it  was  possible  to  estimate  how  much  recreation  boys 
had  during  the  three  days,  one  of  which  was  a  school  day.  The  data 
indicate  that  the  93  boys  who  were  working  had  on  the  average  9.7 
hours  recreation  during  the  three  days  studied,  while  the  boys  who 
were  not  working  averaged  14.7  hours.  The  group  which  was  working 
ten  hours  or  more  each  week  averaged  during  these  three  days  7.8 
hours  recreation,  while  those  30  boys  who  were  working  ten  hours  or 
more  for  wages  had  but  7.7  hours  for  recreation. 

The  students,  in  addition  to  mentioning  the  number  of  recreations 
engaged  in  and  the  length  of  time  devoted  to  an  activity,  mentioned 
in  their  report  for  the  preceding  week  the  number  of  times  each  ac- 
tivity occurred  during  the  week.  The  total  number  of  times  a  recrea- 
tion was  mentioned  by  a  student  during  the  week  is  the  basis  for  the 
following  table: 

AVERAGE  OF  THE  TOTAL 
NUMBER  OF  TIMES 
RECREATION  ACTIVI- 
TIES WERE  MENTIONED 
DURING  THE  WEEK 

Students  not  working 9.9 

Students  working 7.5 

Students  working  10  hours  or  more  per  week 6.5 

Students  working  10  hours  or  more  per  week  for  wages 5.4 

These  figures  indicate  that  in  the  group  studied  the  boy  who  works 
has  to  sacrifice  recreation  time,  and  in  the  case  of  boys  who  work  for 
wages  ten  hours  or  more  a  week,  the  amount  of  recreation  is  about 
one-half  that  of  boys  who  are  not  working.  Boys  who  are  working 
ten  hours  or  more  for  wages  get  along  with  less  recreation  than  do  boys 
working  the  same  length  of  time  at  home.  Much  of  the  home  work  is 
looking  after  stores  when  it  is  possible  to  do  some  studying.  There  is, 
therefore,  more  time  perhaps  for  recreation  after  school  and  work  hours. 

Much  of  the  time  devoted  to  recreation  by  the  high  school  boys 
studied  is  spent  in  the  theaters  and  movies.  The  30  boys  working 

[34] 


for  money  ten  hours  or  more  per  week  report  18  visits  to  the  theater 
or  moving  picture  show  during  the  week  studied,  and  14  during  the 
last  three  days  of  the  week  when  hourly  programs  were  submitted. 
On  the  other  hand  the  68  students  not  working  reported  96  visits  to 
the  theater  and  movies  in  the  week  and  on  the  last  three  days  51  visits. 
The  boy  who  has  nothing  to  do  outside  of  school  spends  much  more 
time  at  shows.  This  would  not  seem  of  great  significance  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  working  boy  if  it  were  not  for  the  fact  that  the  num- 
ber of  visits  to  the  swimming  pool,  gymnasium,  and  athletic  field 
show  a  similar  falling  off  on  the  part  of  boys  working  ten  hours  or 
more.  The  30  boys  working  for  wages  ten  hours  or  more  a  week 
mention  athletic  activities  but  25  times  for  the  week  studied,  while 
the  68  boys  not  working  mention  such  activities  191  times.  An 
examination  of  the  daily  program  for  the  three  days,  which  included  a 
Saturday  and  Sunday  when  special  opportunity  for  recreation  exists, 
discloses  the  fact  that  the  30  boys  mention  participation  in  active 
games  but  five  times,  while  the  68  boys  not  working  mention  such 
activities  63  times.  All  references  to  watching  games  are  eliminated 
from  these  figures. 

Educational  Value  of  Position 

The  third  problem  concerns  the  relation  of  the  students'  position  to 
his  future  work.  The  method  used  in  securing  a  position  naturally 
has  much  to  do  with  this.  It  cannot  be  expected  that  high  school 
students  unassisted,  will  display  great  ingenuity  in  finding  positions 
where  they  will  engage  in  activities  of  value  to  themselves .  Blind  alley 
positions  often  appeal  to  the  boy  because  the  salary  is  attractive  and  the 
nature  of  the  work  is  such  that  it  can  be  engaged  in  after  school  hours. 
How  Positions  were  Secured. — In  the  questionnaire  used  in  De  Witt 
Clinton  High  School  the  following  question  was  asked : 

If  you  tried  to  get  a  job  last  summer,  indicate  below  what  you  did  to  get  one. 
Registered  at  an  employment  agency. 
Asked  teachers  to  find  me  a  place 
Asked  friends. 
Answered  advertisements. 
Called  on  employers. 
Advertised. 
Through  family  influence. 

[351 


By  far  the  most  common  way  of  securing  a  position  is  by  reliance 
on  one's  friends.  Thirty-seven  boys  checked  asked  friends  as  the 
means  they  had  used  in  trying  to  secure  a  job.  Twenty-two  had 
called  on  employers  in  an  effort  to  secure  work  during  the  previous 
summer.  The  next  most  popular  means  was  answering  advertise- 
ments. Family  influence  was  given  by  15.  One  boy  reported  that 
he  had  been  asked  to  take  a  position  without  having  made  any  effort 
to  secure  one;  another  had  inserted  an  advertisement  in  the  papers. 
An  expert  musician  secured  his  engagements  through  the  union. 
The  employment  agency  is  not  a  popular  means  of  securing  positions 
for  this  group  of  boys.  But  one  of  the  95  replies  mentioned  the  em- 
ployment agency.  The  Y.M.C.A.  found  a  position  for  one  boy. 
Teachers  have  not  played  an  important  part  in  securing  positions  for 
this  group  of  boys.  Only  one  boy  checked,  "  Asked  teachers  to  find 
me  a  place."  The  employment  secretaries  in  school  where  placement 
work  is  organized  have  given  little  attention  to  this  work.  In  1915-16 
the  Employment  and  Recommendation  Bureau  of  one  of  the  New 
York  high  schools  filled  471  positions,  but  only  some  10  part-time 
places  were  filled.  In  the  year  1916-17  this  number  was  increased 
to  100.  In  another  high  school  there  were  about  50  part-time  posi- 
tions filled  through  the  employment  secretary  during  1916-17. 1 

Kinds  of  Work  Students  Do. — The  boys  are  doing  many  different 
kinds  of  work.  A  table  of  the  positions  held  by  students  is  appended. 
In  De  Witt  Clinton  High  School  there  are  more  boys  working  in  stores 
and  offices  than  in  any  other  line.  Ninety-nine,  or  27  per  cent,  of 
the  students  working  for  wages  in  this  school  are  in  stores  or  offices. 
In  Eastern  District,  23,  or  20  per  cent,  of  the  boys  are  so  engaged. 


1  "There  are  two  chief  methods  of  finding  a  place.  One  is  to  have  the  path 
made  easy  by  the  father  or  mother  or  some  other  relative  'who  has  a  pull'  with 
the  boys,  and  with  this  method  may  be  included  the  plan  of  having  '  a  friend  put 
in  a  word. '  The  second  way  is  to  'hang  around'  after  leaving  school  or  a  previous 
place,  looking  up  'ads,'  walking  the  street  in  order  to  catch  sight  of  the  'Boy 
Wanted'  signal,  or  making  written  and  oral  application  to  many  establishments. 
Data  on  this  point  show  about  an  equal  number  of  boys  and  girls  using  the 
'assisted'  and  the  'alone'  method."  Opportunities  in  School  and  Industy  for 
Children  of  the  Chicago  Stock  Yards  District,  p.  22,  Ernest  L.  Talbert.  These 
children  left  school  in  the  grammar  school  grades  to  look  for  full-time  positions. 

[361 


The  boys  who  report  working  in  stores  often  mean  doing  odd  jobs, 
clerking  during  the  rush  hours,  running  errands,  sweeping,  etc.  Some 
of  the  boys  are  working  as  regular  clerks  in  the  rush  hours  of  the 
afternoon  and  on  Saturday.  In  addition  to  this  large  group  of  boys 
who  are  doing  store  and  office  work,  there  are  48  boys  in  De  Witt 
Clinton  and  14  in  Eastern  District  high  schools  who  are  working  as 
order  and  delivery  boys  for  small  stores,  for  which  they  are  paid  from 
ten  to  fifteen  cents  an  hour.  Sixteen  per  cent  of  the  working  boys  in 
De  Witt  Clinton  and  23  per  cent  in  Eastern  District  are  teaching. 
In  De  Witt  Clinton  43  boys,  and  in  Eastern  District  35  boys  are 
engaged  in  work  with  newspapers.  Most  of  the  boys  are  delivering 
papers,  but  in  a  few  cases  they  own  stands,  and  two  or  three  of  the 
boys  are  earning  comparatively  high  salaries  by  inspecting  news 
routes.1  Twenty-five  of  the  boys  in  De  Witt  Clinton  are  working  as 
pages  in  the  public  libraries  of  the  city,  for  which  they  are  paid  from 
14  to  16  cents  an  hour,  and  are  required  to  work  from  twenty-two  to 
thirty-six  hours  a  week.  Nine  have  regular  routes  in  the  city,  lighting 
arc  lights.  These  boys  are  paid  about  25  cents  an  hour.  Nineteen 
in  De  Witt  Clinton  and  2  in  Eastern  District  are  playing  some  instru- 
ment or  singing  in  order  to  earn  their  way  through  school.  Several 
play  in  moving  picture  houses,  others  play  in  orchestras  or  for  dancing 
classes  or  dances.  Others  are  post-office  clerks,  chauffeurs,  and 
conduct  insurance  agencies.  There  are  barbers  and  bellhops,  de- 
tectives and  preachers,  acolytes  and  lamp  lighters.  One  young  man 
rented  umbrellas  at  the  subway  on  rainy  days. 

In  the  case  of  girls  there  is  not  so  much  opportunity  for  varied 
employment.  Teaching  is  by  far  the  most  popular.  Forty-four 
per  cent  of  the  girls  who  are  working  for  wages  in  Wadleigh  and  43 
per  cent  in  Eastern  District  are  engaged  in  teaching.  Twenty-six 
per  cent  in  Wadleigh  and  16  per  cent  in  Eastern  District  are  employed 
in  stores  and  offices.  Others  are  waitresses  or  maids,  or  "mind 
babies."  Of  the  124  girls  in  the  two  schools  who  mentioned  their 
occupations  but  7  were  engaged  in  forms  of  work  other  than  those 
mentioned  above.  Three  were  playing  the  piano,  one  was  painting 

1  Case  No.  17.    "Inspector  of  news  deliveries,"  ten  hours  a  week,  salary  $14. 

[371 


place  cards,  one  had  earned  a  prize  through  writing  a  composition, 
and  the  other  through  delivering  a  suffrage  speech. 

The  Students'  Future  Plans. — The  students  who  are  working  for 
wages  are  fitting  into  the  industrial  organization  of  the  city  in  many 
different  ways,  and  the  method  by  which  they  have  secured  their 
work  indicates  little  thought  given  to  their  placement.  In  fact  they 
have  in  most  cases  gone  out  and  taken  the  first  opportunity  open, 
sometimes  without  giving  much  consideration  to  the  adequacy  of 
the  wage  paid  or  the  value  of  the  work  done.  The  boys  in  high  school 
have  in  many  cases  planned  for  their  future  occupation,  and  an 
attempt  was  made  to  ascertain  whether  there  was  any  relation  be- 
tween their  present  work  and  their  future  profession. 

De  Witt  Clinton  High  School  is  an  academic  high  school  preparing 
for  college.  It  is  to  be  expected,  therefore,  that  most  of  the  students 
are  planning  for  a  college  course.  Of  the  161  students  in  the  group 
studied,  154,  or  95  per  cent,  stated  that  they  were  going  to  some 
higher  school  on  completing  their  high  school  work,  3  did  not 
answer  the  question,  and  4  stated  that  they  were  to  enter  some 
form  of  business.  The  following  indicates  the  future  plans  of  the 
group  studied: 


Further  school  work 154 

College 129 

Night  law 1 

Night  college 2 

Dental  school 6 

Diplomatic  and  consular  course 1 

Library  work 1 

Dramatic  school 1 

Medicine 6 

Teachers'  training  school 2 

College  after  working 2 

Scientific  school 1 

Technical  school 1 

Art  school 1 

Insurance  office 1 

Mercantile  business 1 

Fire  department  clerk 1 

Candy  and  stationery  store 1 

No  answer 3 

[38] 


A  comparison  of  the  plans  of  the  students  who  are  working  with 
those  who  are  not  working  shows  no  difference  in  the  proportion  going 
to  college.  The  fact  that  a  boy  is  working  to  support  himself  does 
not  apparently  affect  his  plans  for  further  schooling.  This  is  true 
notwithstanding  the  fact  that  56  per  cent  of  this  group  of  boys  were 
found  to  have  been  earning  wages  at  some  time  during  the  four 
months  preceding  the  study,  and  10  stated  that  they  were  self-sup- 
porting, while  3  not  only  supported  themselves  but  supported  their 
families  either  wholly  or  in  part. 

Relation  of  Outside  Work  to  Future  Occupation. — An  examination 
of  the  reports  of  the  boys  on  their  plans  after  leaving  high  school  indi- 
cates that  in  most  cases  there  can  be  little  connection  between  the 
work  they  are  at  present  doing  and  the  work  they  intend  doing  in 
later  life.  This  does  not  necessarily  condemn  all  the  work  they  are 
doing,  for  in  many  cases  there  must  be  considerable  value  to  the  boy 
in  the  contacts  he  is  making  through  his  business.  However,  thought 
and  time  placed  on  each  boy  as  a  separate  problem  would  result  in 
opportunities  for  work  where  the  experience  would  be  more  valuable 
than  in  the  present  chance  employment,  and  at  the  same  time  the 
remunerative  advantage  which  is  often  the  only  one  at  present,  would 
be  retained. 

Each  boy  in  the  group  of  161  in  De  Witt  Clinton  High  School  was 
asked  whether  there  was  any  connection  between  the  work  he  was 
doing  outside  of  school  hours  and  the  work  he  was  planning  to  do  in 
later  life.  On  the  questionnaire  which  was  given  him  to  fill  out 
during  the  interview,  was  the  following: 

Is  the  work  you  are  doing  outside  of  school 

Of  no  help  in  what  you  intend  doing  after  you  leave  high  school? 

The  same  kind  of  work  you  expect  to  enter  later? 

Somewhat  like  the  work  you  will  enter? 

If  it  will  help  your  future  work  in  some  other  way,  what  is  that  way? 

It  was  hoped  through  this  question  to  find  out  whether  there  was  any 
feeling  on  the  part  of  the  boys  that  their  work  was  of  educational 
value  to  them  from  the  standpoint  of  their  life  work.  Many  of  the 
boys  did  not  express  any  opinion  regarding  the  value  of  their  work. 

[391 


There  were,  however,  42  boys  who  indicated  that  they  felt  that  outside 
work  while  in  school  was  of  no  help  to  them  in  the  work  they  looked 
forward  to  as  a  life  profession.  Ten  felt  that  their  present  work  had 
some  bearing  on  their  life  work;  and  4  stated  that  there  was  a  definite 
relation.  But  6.6  per  cent  of  the  students  reporting,  or  3.3  per  cent 
of  all  who  were  working  for  money,  saw  a  definite  relation  between  the 
work  on  which  they  were  spending  so  much  of  their  time  and  the  work 
which  they  had  chosen  as  a  life  profession,  while  71  per  cent  of  those 
reporting,  or  35  per  cent  of  the  boys  who  were  working  for  wages, 
stated  that  there  was  no  such  relation.  Fifty-one  per  cent  of  the 
students  did  not  answer  the  question.1 

As  an  additional  indication  of  the  bearing  of  the  work  the  boy  ways 
doing  on  his  life  work  the  boys'  cases  were  gone  over  one  by  one,  the 
work  the  boy  was  doing  outside  of  school  hours  considered  in  connec- 
tion with  what  he  was  planning  to  do,  and  an  opinion  registered  as  to 
whether  with  the  little  data  at  hand  there  was  any  relation  to  be  seen 
.between  the  work  being  done  and  the  work  the  boy  stated  he  was 
planning  to  do.  This  judgment  was  personal,  and  in  many  cases  the 
data  were  insufficient  to  make  a  satisfactory  decision.  Some  of  the 
cases  were  very  simple.  One  boy  who  is  going  to  a  dental  college  is 
inspecting  paper  routes;  another  boy  who  is  planning  on  a  college 
education  spends  his  free  time  delivering  dress  suits  for  an  establish- 
ment which  rents  them  out  by  the  night.  Another  boy  peddles  candy 
in  a  theater  and  is  planning  to  attend  college.  A  boy  who  spends  his 
summers  as  a  dining-car  waiter  is  to  study  dentistry,  and  a  boy  who  is 
clerking  in  a  candy  store  is  going  into  medicine.  On  the  other  hand, 
one  of  the  boys  planning  to  become  a  doctor  is  working  in  a  doctor's 
office.  Of  the  cases  in  which  data  were  furnished  by  the  boys,  99,  or 
88  per  cent,  seemed  to  show  no  relation  between  the  part-time  work 
and  the  boy's  probable  future,  3  per  cent  indicated  a  definite  relation, 
and  in  9  per  cent,  or  11  cases,  there  was  a  possible  relation. 


1  Of  91  boys  who  were  working  for  wages  45  answered  the  question,  32  con- 
sidered the  work  of  no  help,  3  the  same  kind,  and  10  somewhat  like  the  work  they 
expect  to  enter  later.  Of  28  boys  who  were  working  without  wages,  10  considered 
the  work  of  no  help,  1  the  same  kind  (engaged  in  his  mother's  fur  store),  and  17  did 
not  answer  the  question. 

[401 


Summary 

The  chances  that  a  student  in  De  Witt  Clinton  High  School  is  working 
for  money  are  between  one  in  three  and  one  in  two.  If  he  has  no 
remunerative  position  the  chances  are  from  one  in  three  to  one  in  four 
that  he  is  working  at  home. 

If  he  works  he  probably  comes  from  a  poorer  family  than  the  boy 
who  does  not  work.  The  chances  are  from  one  in  four  to  one  in  three 
that  if  he  is  working  he  is  supporting  himself.  He  may  be  supporting 
his  family  in  exceptional  cases.  He  lives  in  an  apartment  of  about 
five  rooms  in  size.  If  he  works  ten  hours  or  longer  a  week  the  chances 
are  that  his  apartment  is  a  whole  room  smaller  than  apartments  of 
boys  who  do  not  work.  There  is  less  chance  that  his  father  owns  his 
own  business.  There  is  more  chance  that  he  was  born  abroad,  and 
that  his  older  sisters  have  had  considerable  less  educational  oppor- 
tunity than  is  the  case  where  boys  are  not  working.  This  is  not  as 
true  of  older  brothers.  His  family  pays  about  $22  a  month  for  its 
apartment,  which  is  $12  less  than  families  of  non- working  boys  are 
paying. 

From  the  standpoint  of  the  position  we  have  a  boy  from  sixteen  to 
seventeen  years  of  age  earning  about  $2.50  a  week  and  working 
twelve  hours  a  week.  He  has  considerably  less  time  for  recreation 
than  the  boy  who  does  not  work,  sacrificing  not  only  opportunities 
to  attend  the  "  mo  vies"  and  theaters  but  also  outdoor  sports  of  an 
athletic  character. 

The  value  of  the  work  done  is  shown  in  part  by  the  haphazard  way 
in  which  it  is  secured.  Asking  friends  or  calling  on  employers  are 
methods  frequently  used.  The  most  popular  kind  of  work  is  in  stores 
or  offices,  though  many  boys  are  selling  newspapers  and  teaching. 
It  is  very  probable  that  in  spite  of  the  efforts  the  working  boy  has  to 
make  to  remain  in  school,  he  is  planning  on  going  to  college.  In  view 
of  his  future  plans  it  would  seem  that  the  work  he  is  at  present  doing 
has  its  chief  value  in  supplying  him  with  funds.  He  admits  in  most 
cases  that  his  "  job"  has  no  relation  to  the  thing  he  wishes  later  to  do. 


41] 


CHAPTER  III 
THE  SCHOOL  AND  THE  SELF-SUPPORTING  BOY 

The  immediate  task  before  the  school  regarding  the  working  boy  is  to 
determine  whether  he  can  or  cannot  do  his  school  work.  To  some 
of  those  interested  in  the  problem,  the  marks  the  working  boy  is  given 
furnish  a  basis  for  condemning  or  approving  employment  outside  of 
school  hours.  Several  investigations  along  these  lines  have  been  made 
by  teachers  having  as  their  main  purpose  to  determine  whether  work- 
ing boys  are  doing  their  school  tasks  as  well  as  the  non-working 
group.  In  interviews  with  teachers  this  same  question  was  raised. 
On  the  part  of  some,  opposition  to  the  co-operative  system  was  based 
on  a  belief  that  with  but  half  time  in  school  the  required  school  work 
could  not  be  covered. 

Other  interests  which  the  school  has  in  the  boy  who  must  work  are 
the  amount  of  elimination  among  working  boys  as  compared  with 
boys  who  do  not  work,  and  the  punctuality  and  regularity  in  attend- 
ance of  the  self-supporting  group. 

School  Marks 

In  the  original  questionnaire,  a  copy  of  which  will  be  found  in  the 
appendix,  students  were  requested  to  give  their  most  recent  school 
marks  in  certain  subjects.  In  order  to  determine  the  value  of  this 
data  from  5,973  students,  its  reliability  was  tested  in  the  following 
manner:  In  the  interviews  with  161  De  Witt  Clinton  boys  a  request 
was  made  that  they  give  the  last  mark  they  had  received  in  the  sub- 
jects indicated.  This  was  soon  after  the  midyear  marks  had  been 
received.  These  marks  were  compared  with  the  marks  on  the  perma- 
nent record  card  on  file  in  the  office  of  the  school.  Some  of  the  161 

[42] 


boys  neglected  to  state  their  marks,  and  the  permanent  record  cards 
of  others  were  not  to  be  found.  There  were,  however,  122  students 
who  reported  and  whose  cards  were  examined  to  test  the  accuracy  of 
the  information  furnished.  Of  these  122  students 

46  had  reported  the  same  or  within  5  of  the  same  mark  as  recorded 

on  the  permanent  record  card. 
70  had  reported  failures  as  passing. 
8  had  reported  passing  marks  as  failures.  Five  of  these  had  in 

addition  reported  failures  as  passing. 

There  were  so  many  inaccuracies  in  these  marks  as  reported  by  the 
students  that  no  use  was  made  of  the  material. 

Marks  for  122  students  had  been  secured  from  the  permanent 
record  card.  Of  these  students  52  were  not  working,  22  of  whom, 
or  42  per  cent,  had  failed  in  at  least  one  subject;  4,  or  8  per  cent,  had 
failed  in  two,  and  3,  or  5  per  cent,  in  three  subjects.  Of  70  who  were 
working  at  the  time  the  investigation  was  made  25,  or  36  per  cent, 
had  failed  in  at  least  one  subject  the  previous  term;  8,  or  11  per  cent, 
in  two  subjects,  and  4,  or  6  per  cent,  in  three  subjects. 

According  to  the  grades  the  students  themselves  gave,  of  the  52 
students  not  working  10  had  failed,  one  in  two  subjects;  and  of  the 
70  working  only  5  had  failed,  one  in  three  subjects. 

The  table  below  is  intended  to  show  the  relation  between  failures 
in  school  work  and  number  of  hours  per  week  employed.  The  base 
line  indicates  the  number  of  hours  per  week  worked.  The  letter 
"P"  means  that  the  student  working  the  number  of  hours  indicated 
on  the  base  line  had  not  failed.  "F"  means  that  he  failed  in  one 
subject,  and  a  "2"  or  a  "3""above  the  "F".  indicates  that  he  failed 
two  or  three  times.  The  median  number  of  hours  per  week  worked 
by  these  boys  was  17.  Among  the  35  boys  working  more  than  seven- 
teen hours,  12  reported  22  failures.  Of  the  35  boys  working  less  than 
seventeen  hours  per  week,  13  reported  19  failures. 

The  Pearson  coefficient  of  correlation  of  averages  of  boys  working 
for  wages  and  number  of  hours  worked  is  .16;  of  averages  of  boys 
working  without  wages  and  number  of  hours  worked  is  .07. 

[43] 


P 

F 
F3    F 
P  F2  P 

P 

P 

P  F  P 

F2 

P 

P 

P  P  P 

P 

1 

2 

3 

456 

7 

p 

p 

p 

P 

p 

P 

p 

F2 

F3 

P 

P 

P 

F 

F3 

F 

F 

21 

22 

23 

24  25 

26 

P 
p    p 

F2    P 


8  9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  19  20 


F2  F2 
F3  P 


PPPPPPF2PPP 


In  the  study  made  in  the  spring  of  1917  in  De  Witt  Clinton  High 
School,1  special  attention  was  paid  to  the  effect  on  scholarship  of 
work  done  outside  of  school  hours.  This  study  showed  that  those 
who  work  have  almost  uniformly  a  better  scholarship  record  than 
those  who  do  not,  a  lower  average  of  failures  and  a  higher  average  of 
marks  above  80  per  cent  and  above  90  per  cent. 


BOYS  WHO  WORKED 

No.  IN 
GROUP 

FAILURES 
PER  PUPIL 

No.  MARKS 
ABOVE  80 
PER  PUPIL 

No.  MARKS 
ABOVE  90 
PER  PUPIL 

During  no  part  of  year 

3046 

707 

1.061 

.331 

During  some  part  of  year  for  money 
During   less   than   half   of   summer 
only 

1,437 
159 

.625 
679 

1.152 
1.075 

.369 
.299 

During  more  than  half  of  summer 
only 

527 

.559 

1.278 

.445 

During  school  but  only  on  Saturday 
or  Sunday 

110 

.800 

1.261 

.409 

On  school  days  but  less  than  20  school 
weeks  and  less  than  20  hours  a  week 
On  school  days  more  than  20  school 
weeks   and  less  than  20  hours  a 
week  

142 
134 

.478 
.529 

1.183 
1,179 

.422 
.350 

On  school  days  but  less  than  20  weeks 
and  more  than  20  hours  a  week  .... 
On   school   days   for  more   than  20 
weeks  and  more  than  20  hours  a 
week  

151 
214 

.649 
.799 

1.063 
1.039 

.298 
.247 

The  data   furnished  by  this   study  indicate  that  boys  who  are 
working  are  doing  as  well  in  school  work  as  boys  who  are  not  working, 


Made  by  Mr.  Delaney. 


44 


better,  in  fact,  except  for  the  group  working  more  than  twenty  hours 
a  week  for  more  than  twenty  school  weeks  a  year. 

The  data  for  the  small  group  of  70  if  used  in  the  form  which  was  the 
base  of  the  De  Witt  Clinton  study  cited,  would  show  a  similar  result: 

Thirty  boys  working  over  twenty  hours  registered  20  failures;  40 
boys  working  less  than  twenty  hours  registered  but  21  failures.  How- 
ever, as  a  matter  of  fact  only  10  of  the  30  boys  working  over  twenty 
hours  a  week  had  failed  in  a  subject,  whereas  15  of  the  40  boys  working 
under  twenty  hours  a  week  had  failed  in  subjects. 

It  may  therefore  be  that  the  .799  failures  per  pupil,  the  1.039  marks 
above  80,  and  the  .247  above  90  among  the  students  giving  the  most 
time  to  work  are  caused  by  a  very  small  group  which  has  done  excep- 
tionally poor  work.  If  this  be  true  as  it  is  in  the  case  of  the  smaller 
group  studied,  the  investigation  made  in  De  Witt  Clinton  in  1917 
does  not  indicate  that  students  who  work  even  twenty  hours  or  longer 
for  more  than  twenty  weeks  are  handicapped  in  their  school  work 
except  in  a  comparatively  few  cases.  The  data  from  which  the  study 
was  made  is  not  in  shape  to  permit  this  to  be  verified. 

There  is  no  great  difference  in  the  marks  which  students  working 
and  students  not  working  receive.  Care  must  be  exercised  in  drawing 
conclusions  from  these  facts.  There  are  a  number  of  factors  to  be 
considered.  The  boys  who  are  working  average  a  year  older  than  the 
boys  who  are  not  working.1  Many  of  them  are  in  the  higher  grades. 
There  is  more  elimination  among  the  working  boys  than  among  the 
non-working,  in  so  far  as  the  groups  studied  in  the  following  section 
are  concerned.  The  working  group  may  be  the  result  of  selection  of 
those  working  students  most  able  to  do  their  class-room  work  and  the 
elimination  of  most  of  those  unable  to  carry  their  school  work. 


1  The  2,267  boys  who  were  not  working  for  wages  at  the  time  the  first  study  was 
made  had  a  median  age  of  fifteen,  while  the  369  boys  who  were  working  had  a 
median  age  of  sixteen.  One-half  of  the  boys  who  were  not  working  were  between 
fifteen  and  sixteen,  while  one-half  of  the  boys  who  were  working  were  between 
sixteen  and  seventeen.  Nineteen  per  cent  of  the  boys  over  fifteen  years  of  age, 
and  but  9  per  cent  of  the  boys  fifteen  and  under,  were  working  for  wages.  Of  the 
small  group  of  boys  studied  in  De  Witt  Clinton  High  School,  62  per  cent  of  those 
who  were  over  fifteen  years  of  age  had  been  earning  money  during  the  four  months 
preceding  the  study,  while  but  19  per  cent  of  those  fifteen  years  and  younger  had 

[451 


Elimination  of  Working  Boys 

In  order  to  determine  whether  there  was  more  elimination  from  school 
in  the  group  of  boys  who  work  than  in  the  group  who  do  not  work, 
two  groups  of  50  boys  each  were  selected  from  the  students  studied 
in  De  Witt  Clinton  High  School  in  February,  1915.  In  one  group 
were  placed  only  boys  who  during  the  week  studied  in  1915  were 
earning  money,  and  in  the  other  group  were  placed  boys  who  during 
that  week  were  not  at  work.  The  groups  were  the  result  of  a  chance 
selection.  No  attempt  was  made  to  include  students  who  were  in  a 
certain  grade  or  who  were  doing  the  same  kind  of  work. 


been  receiving  remuneration.    The  following  table  shows  the  age  of  boys  and 
the  per  cent  of  each  group  working  for  money: 


AGE 

DE  WITT  CLINTON  HIGH  SCHOOL 
ONE  WEEK 

DE  WITT  CLINTON  HIGH  SCHOOL 
FOUR  MONTHS  PRECEDING  STUDY 

Number  for 
Wages 

Per  Cent  Work- 
ing for  Wages 

Number  for 
Wages 

Per  Cent  Work- 
ing for  Wages 

13.  . 

113 

458 
749 
637 
422 
160 
51 
13 
5 

7 
7 
10 
15 
29 
36 
26 
54 
60 

2 
10 
25 
50 
42 
22 
8 
1 

0 
0 
28 
54 
57 
73 
100 
100 

14  

15.  .  

16  

17  
18  

19  

20  
21 

More  of  the  older  boys  are  working  ten  hours  or  more  per  week  than  the  younger 
ones.  Of  the  255  boys  over  fifteen  who  are  working,  163,  or  64  per  cent,  are 
working  ten  hours  or  more  a  week,  while  but  44  per  cent  of  the  boys  fifteen  and 
under  who  are  working  are  devoting  such  long  hours  to  their  work. 

Classifying  the  boys  by  semesters  as  in  the  following  table,  the  boys  in  the 
more  advanced  classes  are  shown  to  be  working  to  a  greater  extent  than  those  in 
the  lower  classes. 


SEMESTER 

NUMBER  OF  BOYS  IN 

SEMESTER 

PER  CENT  WORKING 

II 

404 

11 

III.  . 

479 

12 

IV 

498 

10 

v 

366 

14 

VI 

311 

16 

VII 

284 

19 

VIII 

193 

20 

[46] 


The  next  step  was  to  find  whether  these  boys  were  still  in  attendance 
in  February,  1916,  a  year  after  the  first  investigation  had  been  made. 
The  records  at  De  Witt  Clinton  High  School  showed  that  of  each 
group  two  students  had  graduated,  and  that  one  of  the  boys  in  the 
non-working  group  had  been  transferred  to  Chicago.  In  the  group 
of  50  non-working  boys  at  the  time  of  the  investigation  in  1915,  36 
were  still  students  in  De  Witt  Clinton  High  School.  Of  the  50  boys 
who  had  been  at  work  the  previous  year  32  remained  in  the  high  school, 
16  of  the  boys  working,  and  11  of  the  boys  who  were  not  working 
were  not  registered  in  De  Witt  Clinton  High  School  in  February, 
1916,  and  had  left  school  without  being  transferred  or  graduated. 

For  some  reason  5  of  these  boys'  names  do  not  appear  either  in  the 
present  records  or  in  the  files  of  eliminated  pupils.  It  is  possible  that 
these  records  have  been  misplaced  or  that  they  have  given  the  wrong 
names.  The  probability  is  that  the  absence  of  their  names  in  the 
lists  indicated  that  they  had  been  dropped.  Three  of  them  were  boys 
who  were  at  work  in  1915  and  two  were  boys  who  were  not  at  work. 
The  fact  that  they  were  divided  between  the  two  groups  would  hardly 
change  the  results.  Elimination  then,  so  far  as  this  group  is  con- 
cerned, is  somewhat  greater  among  boys  who  work  than  among  boys 
who  do  not. 

A  similar  random  selection  was  made  of  one  hundred  students  from 
Eastern  District  High  School,  Brooklyn.  All  of  these  were  students 
who  had  been  included  in  the  study  made  the  year  before.  Half 
reported  themselves  as  working  during  the  week  in  1915  when  the 
study  was  made. 

An  investigation  was  then  made  to  see  whether  these  students  were 
still  in  school  or  not.  The  results  are  indicated  below. 


DE  WITT  CLINTON 

EASTERN  DISTRICT 

Working 

Not  Working 

Working 

Not  Working 

Still  in  school  

32 
2 
16 

36 
3 
11 

26 
11 
13 

37 
5 

8 

Transferred  or  graduated  
Eliminated  

[47] 


In  Eastern  District,  too,  there  would  seem  to  be  a  larger  elimination 
from  the  working  group  than  from  the  group  that  is  not  at  work. 

It  is  probable  that  several  factors  enter  into  this  result.  The  long 
hours  many  of  the  boys  work  must  tend  to  discourage  them  in  their 
efforts  to  attend  school.  Then,  it  is  doubtless  true  that  positions 
secured  open  up  full-time  positions  and  offer  opportunities  for  boys 
to  leave  school  and  enter  industry.1  The  need  for  funds  to  assist  the 
boy  in  attending  school  must  often  become  greater  and  require  him 
to  give  all  his  time  to  his  position. 

Tardiness  and  Absence 

In  comparing  the  regularity  of  attendance  and  punctuality  of  working 
boys  and  non-working  boys  during  one  semester,  only  those  students 
are  considered  in  the  working  group  who  were  employed  on  school 
days.  Boys  who  were  working  on  Saturdays  or  on  but  one  or  two 
school  days  a  week  are  not  considered.  In  the  non-working  group  are 
all  boys  who  were  not  working  during  the  school  term  regardless  of 
whether  they  were  employed  during  vacation  or  not. 

The  school  is  directly  concerned  with  the  regularity  of  attendance 
and  punctuality  of  the  student,  just  as  it  is  with  the  amount  of 
elimination  and  the  ability  to  do  the  school  work  assigned.  The 
long  hours  devoted  to  outside  activities  by  students  would  seem  to 
increase  the  amount  of  tardiness  and  absence.  However,  in  so  far 
as  the  small  group  studied  is  an  indication  of  the  effect  of  outside  work, 
there  is  but  little  difference  in  the  working  and  the  non-working 
groups. 

A  separation  of  the  working  group  into  those  who  are  working  for 
wages  and  those  who  are  working  without  wages  reveals  considerable 
more  absence  and  tardiness  among  those  students  who  are  working 
for  wages.  These  averaged  one  more  absence  and  twice  as  many 


1  In  Superintendent  Maxwell's  letter  to  high  school  principals  on  June  8,  1917, 
referred  to  in  Chapter  V  of  this  study,  the  plan  proposed  for  placing  students  dur- 
ing the  summer  is  said  to  be  open  to  the  above  criticism,  and  he  states  that  "the 
danger  of  pupils  not  returning  to  school  at  the  end  of  the  summer  will  be  reduced 
to  a  minimum,  as  the  department  will  be  in  touch  with  the  pupils  and  the 
employer." 

[48] 


IN  ONE  SEMESTER  NUMBER  OF  TIMES 

Absent 

Tardy 

Average 

Median 

Average 

Size  of  Group 

Working  boys 

7.2 
6.66 

7.6 
6.57 

7 
6 

1.12 

.77 

1.66 
.26 

49 
53 

30 
19 

Non-working  boys  
Of  the  working  boys,  those 
With  wages                  .  .    .  . 

Without  wages              .    .  . 

cases  of  tardiness  as  the  non-working  group.  The  boy  who  is  working 
for  wages,  even  though  he  may  be  giving  no  more  hours  to  his  work  than 
the  boy  who  is  helping  at  home  without  remuneration,  is  a  greater  prob- 
lem from  the  standpoint  of  the  teacher.  This  somewhat  greater  irregu- 
larity in  school  attendance  and  punctuality  is  due  probably  to  the 
fact  that  the  boy  working  for  wages  is  required  to  work  during  fixed 
hours,  and  is  employed  in  work  which  frequently  takes  more  of  his 
energy  and  gives  him  less  time  to  study  his  school  lessons. 


[49] 


CHAPTER  IV 
CO-OPERATIVE  WORK 

By  co-operative  work  is  meant  the  system  at  present  in  operation  in  a 
number  of  the  New  York  City  high  schools  by  which  certain  students, 
who  are  taking  vocational  courses,  work  in  pairs  alternating  between 
school  and  position.  Generally  one  student  spends  a  week  in  school 
while  his  comrade  is  working  in  the  office  or  shop.  At  the  end  of  the 
week  the  two  students  change  places,  the  student  in  the  shop  return- 
ing to  school  and  his  place  being  filled  by  the  student  who  has  had  a 
week  in  school.  Positions  for  students  in  factories,  shops,  and  offices 
are  found  by  the  co-ordinator,  a  special  teacher  in  each  high  school. 
The  selection  of  the  student  to  fill  a  position  is  also  made  under  his 
direction,  and  careful  supervision  of  the  student's  work  is  a  part  of 
the  co-ordinator's  duty.  The  employment  is  more  or  less  related 
to  the  class-room  work. 

In  the  Seventeenth  annual  report  of  the  city  superintendent  of 
schools  for  1914-15  in  the  section  on  part-time  co-operative  and  con- 
tinuation classes,  Associate  City  Superintendent  John  H.  Haaren 
closes  his  part  of  the  report  with  his  conclusions  under  ten  headings. 
The  following  seemed  of  special  importance  from  the  standpoint  of 
the  present  study: 

The  experience  of  less  than  a  year  with  the  co-operative  system 
seems  to  prove  the  following: 

6.  That  the  time  spent  by  co-operative  students  in  employment 
does  not  necessarily  prolong  the  period  of  high  school  attend- 
ance for  graduation. 

7.  That  the  plan  provides  a  means  by  which  pupils  who  would 
otherwise  have  to  leave  high  school  may  continue  their  educa- 
tion. 

9.  That  the  student  is  keener  and  more  alert  in  his  school  work 
after  entering  upon  the  co-operative  course. 

[501 


It  was  with  these  statements  in  mind  that  an  investigation  was 
made  of  the  boys  and  girls  in  certain  co-operative  classes  in  New 
York  City.  This  part  of  the  study  needs,  however,  to  be  prefaced 
by  a  statement  of  the  limitations  to  which  the  data  presented  are 
subject. 

The  marks  which  have  been  secured  from  the  two  high  schools 
studied  indicate  that  there  has  been  no  marked  failure  on  the  part 
of  these  co-operative  students  to  do  their  class-room  work.  How- 
ever, the  following  points  should  be  kept  in  mind  as  bearing  on  this 
conclusion : 

A.  Actual  co-operation  between  the  firms  and  the  school  began 
February  8,  1915,  and  the  present  study  covered  but  a  com- 
paratively small  group  of  students  who  were  in  the  first  class. 
The  limited  amount  of  data  therefore  lessens  the  value  of  the 
conclusions  drawn. 

B.  The  co-ordinators  with  whom  the  writer  worked  were  an 
enthusiastic  group  of  teachers  anxious  to  have  their  new  work 
a  success  and  definitely  committed  to  emphazing  the  most 
favorable  side  of  it.  There  were  advocates  of  the  system  among 
the  teachers  interviewed.     In  other  cases  teachers  were  seen 
who  had  condemned  the  system  before  a  fair  experiment  was 
possible.     Under  these  circumstances  it  is  recognized  that 
impressions  secured  through  interviews  were  not  very  reliable. 

C.  As  a  result  of  this  it  was  difficult  to  ascertain  whether  the 
school  work  done  by  the  group  of  co-operative  students  was 
actually  the  same  or  approximately  the  same  as  that  done  by 
the  non-co-operating  students.  Teachers  and  co-ordinators  in- 
terviewed in  almost  every  case  asserted  that  it  was  the  same, 
and  that  the  students  in  co-operative  work  were  given  longer 
lessons  during  the  week  in  school  than  others  or  that  they 
made  up  more  work  outside  of  school.     Marks  on  the  school 
registers  were  given,  in  most  cases,  by  the  same  teacher  who 
was  marking  the  full-time  students. 

D.  The  lack  of  any  means  of  comparing  the  relative  ability  of 
students  before   entering  the   co-operative   course  or  after 
finishing  it,  other  than  the  marks  given  by  the  teacher,  is  a 
weakness.     Marks  at  best  are  poor  indications  of  achievement. 

[511 


In  this  case  the  person  marking  realized  that  a  new  system 
was  being  tried.  He  was  predisposed  frequently  to  favor  or 
oppose  the  system.  Therefore  even  less  reliability  may  be 
placed  on  these  marks  than  ordinary  school  marks. 

These  studies  of  co-operative  students  were  made  in  Bushwick 
and  Washington  Irving  high  schools.  In  these  two  schools  the 
co-operative  students  studied  were  doing  practically  the  same  work 
expected  of  full-time  students.  The  data  secured  from  these  two 
schools  are  significant  in  the  present  study  of  the  self-support- 
ing student  in  high  schools.  In  the  first  place  the  co-operative 
system  is  in  many  instances  a  solution  of  the  problem  of  self- 
support.1  In  Bushwick  High  School  the  co-ordinator  mentioned 
this  fact  as  one  of  the  criteria  on  which  he  based  his  selection  of 
students.  In  the  report  on  part-time  co-operative  and  continua- 
tion schools  for  1915,  New  York  City,  the  co-operative  course  is 
described  as  valuable  in  part  because  "it  helps  to  solve  what- 
ever financial  difficulties  the  student  may  meet  in  his  high  school 
course." 

Mr.  Charles  M.  Smith,  co-ordinator  in  Newtown  High  School,  states 
that  the  course  has  been  of  great  value  "in  encouraging  the  student 
of  limited  financial  circumstances  to  continue  his  school  work.  More 
than  one-fourth  of  our  co-operative  students  are  staying  in  school  on 
account  of  the  financial  assistance  they  are  now  able  to  furnish  for  the 
support  of  their  families."2 

And  again,  the  effect  of  co-operative  work  on  school  marks  where 
half-time  students  are  doing  full-time  work,  is  indicative  of  the  degree 
to  which  self-supporting  students  are  handicapped  in  their  school 


1  Occasionally  a  student  finds  that  the  wages  received  from  co-operative  work 
are  not  sufficient  to  meet  his  needs  and  therefore  he  continues  in  the  regular  course 
working  outside  school  hours.  The  following  case  illustrates  this:  Abraham  S. 
is  working  in  a  newspaper  office  from  5  p.m.  to  12  p.m.  each  school  day,  and  from 
9  a.m.  to  midnight  Sundays.  He  receives  $10  a  week.  He  is  graduating  at  the 
head  of  his  class  from  a  commercial  course.  When  asked  why  he  has  not  entered 
the  co-operative  class  in  his  school  he  stated  that  he  could  not  afford  to,  as  the 
co-operative  students  earned  but  $8.00  every  other  week. 

8  The  Report  on  Continuation  and  Part  Time  Co-operative  Classes  in  New 
York  City  for  the  year  1915-16,  p.  99. 

[52] 


work.  For  both  there  is  a  curtailment  of  home  study.  The  self- 
supporting  student,  the  chief  interest  of  this  investigation,  has  even 
more  time  for  school  work  as  a  rule  than  the  co-operative  student. 
The  median  number  of  hours  which  full-time  students  worked  each 
week  for  wages  was  in  the  case  of  boys  in  De  Witt  Clinton  High  School 
twelve;  seven  in  Eastern  District  High  School;  for  girls  in  Eastern 
District  High  School  six,  and  in  Wadleigh  four  and  a  half  hours. 
The  co-operative  student,  on  the  other  hand,  works  regular  factory 
or  office  hours.  This  would  mean  a  minimum  of  thirty-nine  hours  a 
week;  or,  as  he  is  employed  every  other  week,  nineteen  and  one-half 
hours  a  week.  If  the  co-operative  student's  work  is  not  seriously 
affected  by  half  time  spent  out  of  school,  it  may  be  inferred  that  con- 
siderable time  may  be  devoted  to  work  outside  school  hours  by  a 
full-time  student  without  seriously  interfering  with  his  school  marks. 
The  factory  or  office  work  which  co-operative  students  do  has  been 
selected  both  with  regard  to  their  future  work  and  the  school  course. 
The  co-operative  student  is,  therefore,  employed  in  outside  work 
which  should  make  his  school  work  much  more  vital.  In  the  ap- 
pendix are  statements  from  girls  in  Washington  Irving  High  School 
giving  their  opinion  of  the  co-operative  course  and  a  brief  outline  of 
the  experience  they  gained.  A  description  of  the  work  which  girls 
in  the  commercial  course  were  given  in  offices  is  also  added. 

While  the  carefully  selected  outside  work  of  co-operative  students 
is  much  more  liable  to  motivate  school  work  than  is  true  in  the  case 
of  self-supporting  non-co-operative  students,  still  it  should  be  remem- 
bered that  the  latter  group  attends  all  class  recitations,  and  that  the 
co-operative  student  is  able  to  attend  but  half  his  recitations.  It  is 
also  true  in  many  cases  that  students  willing  to  make  the  sacrifices 
which  earning  their  way  through  school  implies,  see,  or  imagine  they 
see,  a  real  reason  for  attending  school.  Ninety-five  per  cent  of  a 
group  of  students  studied  in  De  Witt  Clinton  High  School  are  plan- 
ning on  further  education  for  which  the  high  school  course  is  direct 
preparation. 

The  study  of  co-operative  work  in  Bushwick  High  School  covers  a 
class  of  79  girls  in  the  commercial  course,  of  whom  41  had  been  doing 

[53] 


half-time  school  work  in  the  co-operative  system.  In  Washington 
Irving  High  School  140  girls  in  the  German  commercial  course  were 
studied,  60  of  whom  were  giving  every  other  week  to  office  work. 


Bushwick  High  School,  Brooklyn 

Seventy-nine  girls  in  the  commercial  course  of  the  Bushwick  High 
School,  Brooklyn,  were  studied  in  the  spring  of  1916.  Forty-one  had 
spent  the  semester  previous  to  the  investigation,  the  fall  of  1915,  in 
half-time  work  in  school  on  the  co-operative  plan,  the  rest  of  the  time 
being  devoted  to  work  in  some  business  office.  The  other  38  girls 
were  full-time  students  of  the  school,  and  both  groups  were  doing 
practically  the  same  academic  work  under  the  same  teachers. 

The  school  marks  for  these  girls  during  the  semester,  September, 
1915,  to  February,  1916,  when  part  were  in  the  co-operative  system, 
were  secured.  These  marks  in  the  case  of  each  student  in  the  group 
were  compared  with  the  marks  given  the  same  student  the  semester 
before,  to  determine  whether  they  were  lower,  the  same,  or  higher.1 
They  were  also  compared  with  the  average  of  the  marks  given  the 
student  the  three  preceding  semesters  before  any  of  the  girls  had 
entered  the  co-operative  plan.  In  the  first  table  the  comparison  is 
made  with  the  marks  given  the  preceding  semester  when  all  the  stu- 
dents were  on  full  time.  The  first  column  under  each  subject  indi- 
cates the  percentage  of  non-co-operative  students  whose  grades  were 
less,  the  same,  or  more  than  the  preceding  semester.  The  same  facts 
are  shown  for  the  co-operative  students  in  the  second  column. 


1  The  Pearson  co-efficients  of  correlation  between  marks  given  students  before 
the  introduction  of  co-operative  work  and  the  term  after  its  introduction  are  as 
follows: 


CO-OPS. 

NON- 
CO-OPS. 

CO-OPS. 

NON- 
CO-OPS. 

English 

.39 

.60 

Typewriting  

.02 

.30 

Bookkeeping   .  . 

.07 

.38 

Geography  and  Law  .  . 

.17 

.65 

Stenography  

.21 

.50 

[54 


ENGLISH 

BOOKKEEPING 

STENOGRAPHY 

TYPEWRITING 

COMMERCIAL 
GEOGRAPHY  AND 
LAW 

Nonr 
co-ops. 

Co-ops. 

Non- 
co-ops. 

Co-ops. 

Non- 
co-ops. 

Co-ops. 

Non- 
co-ops. 

Co-ops. 

Non- 
co-ops. 

Co-ops. 

"-48 
0  30 

+22 

17 
27 
56 

30 
10 
60 

46 
5 

49 

57 
8 
35 

68 
15 
17 

48 
22 
30 

34 
12 
54 

42 
8 

50 

34 
10 
56 

The  second  table  is  similar  to  the  preceding  except  that  each  stu- 
dent's grades  are  compared  with  the  average  the  same  student  re- 
ceived in  the  subject  the  three  preceding  semesters.  As  in  the  first 
table  the  percentage  of  non-co-operative  students  is  shown  in  the  first 
column,  while  the  second  column  indicates  the  percentages  of  co- 
operative students. 


COMMERCIAL 

ENGLISH 

BOOKKEEPING 

STENOGRAPHY 

TYPEWRITING 

GEOGRAPHY  AND 

LAW 

Non- 
co-ops. 

Co-ops. 

Non- 
co-ops. 

Co-ops. 

Non- 
co-ops. 

Co-ops. 

Non- 
co-ops. 

Co-ops. 

Non- 
co-ops. 

Co-ops. 

-72 

29 

37 

64 

52 

76 

62 

51 

52 

49 

0    3 

10 

3 

2 

5 

5 

13 

10 

5 

5 

+25 

61 

60 

34 

43 

19 

25 

39 

43 

46 

The  first  table  shows  that  in  the  three  subjects — English,  type- 
writing, and  commercial  geography  and  law — a  somewhat  larger  pro- 
portion of  the  co-operative  girls  than  of  the  non-co-operative  was 
given  higher  grades  than  in  the  same  subjects  the  previous  term. 
The  second  table  indicates  the  same  to  be  true  of  the  co-operative 
girls  when  the  average  of  the  three  previous  semesters  is  taken  instead 
of  the  grade  for  the  preceding  semester  alone.  In  both  tables  in 
these  three  subjects  a  larger  percentage  of  non-co-operative  girls  re- 
ceives a  lower  mark. 

In  bookkeeping  and  stenography  the  co-operative  girls  compare 
unfavorably  with  the  non-co-operatives.  In  both  of  these  subjects 
students  in  school  all  of  the  time,  the  non-co-operative  group,  have 
done  better  work  in  so  far  as  these  marks  measure  achievement. 

[55] 


This  is  true  in  both  the  first  and  second  table.  The  co-ordinator  in 
Bushwick  High  School  who  is  in  charge  of  the  co-operative  work, 
explains  the  results  as  due  to  the  fact  that  in  bookkeeping  during  the 
sixth  semester,  the  one  in  which  co-operative  work  was  introduced, 
the  course  requires  little  work  during  the  school  period,  but  makes 
heavy  demands  on  the  student's  time  outside  of  school  hours.  This 
larger  amount  of  home  work  handicaps  the  girl  who  is  giving  every 
other  week  to  an  office  position  with  the  long  hours  required  of  her 
there.  The  stenography  course  in  which  non-co-operative  students 
have  apparently  been  more  successful  than  co-operative  students, 
is  said  by  the  co-ordinator  to  be  the  most  difficult  subject  which  the 
girls  study.  There  is  not  much  home  work  in  this  subject.  Class 
dictation  exercises  form  the  principal  part  of  the  work.  The  students 
are  given  marks  in  stenography  on  the  basis  of  the  number  of  perfect 
transcriptions  made  from  these  class  exercises.  In  this  subject  where 
class  practise  is  of  so  great  importance,  students  who  have  but  half 
of  the  class  periods  are  apparently  somewhat  handicapped. 

In  view  of  the  fact  that  the  girls  who  were  on  half  time  were  doing 
work  which  seemed  to  be  better  than  the  work  which  students  on 
full  time  were  doing  in  three  of  the  five  subjects  studied,  the  question 
was  raised  as  to  the  relative  ability  of  the  two  groups,  the  co-operative 
and  the  non-co-operative,  when  they  were  in  school  together  as  full- 
time  students.  The  marks  given  these  girls  when  they  were  all  on 
full  time  were  examined  for  the  preceding  semester  and  for  the  three 
preceding  semesters.  In  each  of  the  five  subjects  the  results  indicate 
that  the  students  who  were  later  to  go  into  co-operative  classes  were 
given  somewhat  lower  marks  by  the  teachers  than  the  students  wrho 
were  to  continue  on  full-time  work.  The  co-ordinator  in  Bushwick 
High  School  asserts  that  there  had  been  no  conscious  attempt  to 
select  girls  for  co-operative  work  who  were  doing  poorer  work  in  class. 
He  had  had  three  criteria  in  choosing  the  girls  who  are  to  go  into 
offices  alternate  weeks  during  their  last  semester  in  school.  They 
must  show  improvement  in  their  school  work;  they  must  have  an 
attractive  personality;  thirdly,  when  a  girl  is  unable  to  remain  in 
school  because  of  lack  of  necessary  funds,  she  is  given  an  opportunity 

[561 


to  do  co-operative  work  and  thus  become  in  part  self-supporting.  The 
first  of  these  three  grounds  for  selecting  co-operative  students  is  the 
one  least  emphasized. 

In  Bushwick  High  School  students  who  were  selected  to  enter  the 
co-operative  course  had  not  been  receiving  quite  as  high  school  marks 
as  those  who  remained  in  school  full  time.  After  a  semester  of  half- 
time  work  these  co-operative  students  in  English  and  typewriting 
did  better  school  work  than  the  non-co-operative  students,  and  in 
commercial  law  and  geography  about  as  good  work. 

For  the  purpose  of  this  study  the  only  conclusion  which  it  is  desired 
to  draw  from  the  data  is  that  in  so  far  as  this  small  group  of  girls  is 
concerned,  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  the  co-operative  system 
with  but  half  time  devoted  to  school  work,  has  not  seriously  interfered 
with  the  students'  success  as  measured  by  school  marks.1 

Washington  Irving  High  School,  New  York 
In  Washington  Irving  High  School  there  were  in  the  senior  class 
graduated  in  February,  1916,  of  the  German  commercial  course,  60 
girls  who  devoted  alternate  weeks  to  office  work  and  to  school  work, 
on  the  co-operative  plan.  Most  of  the  office  work  was  done  in  the 
Board  of  Education  Building,  59th  Street  and  Park  Avenue.2  There 
was  no  compensation  for  this  work.  The  Civil  Service  Commission 
does  not  as  yet  provide  positions  for  students  in  co-operative  courses. 
The  girls  were  securing  actual  office  experience  of  a  kind  which  the 
school  itself  could  not  give.  These  60  girls  were  doing  co-operative 
work  just  as  was  the  group  in  Bushwick  High  School,  although  the 

1  The  following  figures  indicate  that  the  classes  in  Bushwick  High  School  com- 
mercial course  at  present  are  additional  evidence  of  the  above  statement.  Class  VI 
in  three  sections  is  graduating  in  June,  1917.  Class  V  in  four  sections  is  to  graduate 
in  February,  1918.  The  data  are  for  the  week  ending  April  20,  1917. 

VI F  Co-operative 7  per  cent  of  failures 

VIG  Full  time 11 

VIH  Full  time 14 

V  G  Co-operative 5 

VH  Full  time 14 

VI  Fulltime ' 10 

VJ  Fulltime 14 

For  a  description  of  some  of  this  work  see  appendix. 

[571 


clerical  group  was  not  receiving  wages  for  its  work.  In  this  course, 
part  of  the  students  were  giving  full  time  to  school  work  and  part 
were  giving  half  time.  There  were  80  girls  who  were  spending  all 
their  time  on  academic  and  technical  school  work.  These  80  girls  on  full 
time  and  the  60  girls  on  half  time  were  both  doing  the  same  school  work. 
The  first  problem  was  to  ascertain  to  what  extent  the  two  groups 
were  equal  in  ability.  It  might  be  that  only  the  brightest  girls  had 
been  chosen  to  do  co-operative  work,  or  on  the  other  hand,  only  the 
poorer  girls,  as  seems  to  have  been  the  tendency  in  Bush  wick.  For 
this  purpose  the  grades  given  by  the  instructors  for  the  semester 
ending  June,  1915,  in  German,  English,  bookkeeping  and  stenography- 
typewriting  were  secured.  During  the  semester  covered  by  these 
grades  none  of  the  girls  was  at  work.  They  were  all  devoting  full 
time  to  the  high  school  work,  and  the  division  into  co-operatives  and 
non-co-operatives  had  not  been  made.  It  will  be  seen  from  these 
tables  (I  and  II)  that  the  girls  later  to  become  co-operative  students 
were  a  little  superior  to  the  girls  who  were  to  continue  in  school  all 
the  time.  The  median  grade  for  the  co-operative  students  in  each 
subject  is  somewhat  higher  than  the  median  grade  for  the  non-co- 
operative group.  The  difference  is  not  great  except  in  stenography- 
typewriting  and  in  each  group  there  are  a  number  of  good  students. 
The  first  column  in  Tables  I  and  II  indicates  the  girls  later  to  become 
co-operative  students;  the  second  column  the  girls  who  were  to  remain 
on  full  time  in  school. 

TABLE  I.— GERMAN  COMMERCIAL  COURSE,  JUNE,  1915. 
WASHINGTON  IRVING  HIGH  SCHOOL 


ENGLISH 

GERMAN 

BOOKKEEPING 

STENOGRAPHY- 
TYPEWRITING 

Co-ops. 

Non-co- 
ops. 

Co-ops. 

Non-co- 
ops. 

Co-ops. 

Non-co- 
ops. 

Co-ops. 

Non-co- 
ops. 

1st    quartile 

70 

65 

65 

65 

65 

65 

70 

60 

Median.  . 

75 

72 

72 

70 

72 

70 

75 

68 

3rd  quartile 

80 

80 

80 

80 

80 

75 

85 

75 

Average  .  . 

74.72 

73.36 

74.3 

72.4 

71.9 

70.7 

76.1 

68.1 

Av.  D  from 

median.  . 

8.57 

9.5 

8.5 

9.9 

8.4 

9.3 

8.5 

6.7 

58 


TABLE  II.— PERCENTAGE  OF  STUDENTS  IN  EACH  SUBJECT  IN  THE 

GERMAN  COMMERCIAL  COURSE  JUNE,  1915,  RECEIVING  A 

GRADE  BELOW  70,  70  TO  80,  ABOVE  80 


ENGLISH 

GERMAN 

BOOKKEEPING 

STENOGRAPHY- 
TYPEWRITING 

Co-op. 

Non-co- 
op. 

Co-op. 

Non-co- 
op. 

Co-op. 

Non-co- 
op. 

Co-op. 

Non-co- 
op. 

70- 

22 

32 

37 

40 

33 

40 

22 

51 

70-80 

41 

31 

28 

28 

39 

38 

38 

31 

SO- 

37 

37 

35 

32 

28 

22 

40 

18 

In  German  and  bookkeeping  in  Table  II  there  was  a  little  difference 
in  the  two  groups  in  favor  of  the  co-operatives.  In  English  37  per 
cent  of  each  group  were  above  80.  In  stenography  and  typewriting 
the  difference  is  much  more  noticeable.  But  18  per  cent  of  the  non- 
co-operatives  were  above  80  in  their  grades  the  semester  previous  to 
the  opening  of  the  co-operative  plan.  Of  the  co-operatives,  40  per 
cent  were  above  80.  Apparently  there  was  a  conscious  effort  to  pick 
out  the  good  students  in  stenography  and  typewriting  in  selecting  the 
girls  who  were  to  do  co-operative  work.  This  is  also  indicated  by  the 
difference  in  the  median  grades  as  shown  in  Table  I.  The  non- 
co-operative  group  had  a  median  grade  in  stenography  and  type- 
writing of  68;  the  co-operative  group  a  median  grade  of  75.  There 
were,  however,  even  in  the  stenography  and  typewriting  group  a 
number  of  bright  pupils  who  did  not  elect  co-operative  work. 

That  the  co-operative  students  at  the  time  the  cla§s  was  formed 
were  somewhat  better  than  the  non-co-operative  students  as  indicated 
by  their  grades  is  also  shown  by  averaging  the  grades  for  each  of  the 
girls  in  English,  German,  bookkeeping,  stenography-typewriting  for 
the  semester  ending  June,  1915.  These  averages  were  divided  into 
quartiles  with  the  result  shown  in  Table  III. 

Sixty  per  cent  of  the  girls  to  become  co-operatives  were  in  the  upper 
half  of  the  class  as  compared  with  41  per  cent  of  the  non-co-operatives. 

Admitting  then  that  the  two  sections  were  not  absolutely  equal  and 
that  the  co-operative  group  was  a  little  better  in  German,  English, 
and  bookkeeping,  and  considerably  better  in  stenography-type- 

[59] 


TABLE    III— AVERAGE    OF    GRADES    FOR   JUNE,    1915,    GERMAN 
COMMERCIAL  COURSE,  WASHINGTON  IRVING  HIGH  SCHOOL 

Numbers  without  line — Girls  who  later  became  co-operatives. 
Numbers  with  line  beneath — Non-co-operatives. 


70 

70 

70 

70 

7071 

80 

7071 

80 

65          70  71 

80 

65     68   70  71 

80 

65  66   68   70  71   73 

78   80 

65  66  67  68  69  70  71  72  73 

78   80  81 

61        65  66  67  68  69  70  71  72  73  74 

77  78  79  80  81  82  83 

84 

61   63  64  65  66  67  68  69  70  71  72  73  74 

76  77  78  79  80  81  82  83 

84  85 

54 

59  61   63  64  65  66  67  68  69  70  71  72  73  74 

76  77  78  79  80  81  82  83 

84  85      92 

54 

59  61  62  63  64  65  66  67  68  69  70  71  72  73  74 

75  76  77  78  79  80  81  82  83 

84  85  86  87  88 

CO-OPERATIVES 

PER  CENT 

NON- 
CO-OPERATIVES 

PER  CENT 

Lowest  quartile  
2nd  quartile         .       .    . 

9 
15 

15 
25 

26 
20 

33 

26 

3rd  quartile 

19 

32 

15 

19 

Highest  quartile  

17 

28 

17 

22 

writing  as  shown  by  the  previous  tables,  let  us  examine  the  results 
of  the  semester's  work  when  60  of  the  girls  were  in  school  about  half 
the  time  and  80  were  in  school  full  time.  In  order  to  get  an  idea  of  the 
relative  standing  of  these  two  groups  of  girls  their  marks  for  the 
semester  ending  June,  1915,  when  they  were  all  on  full  time,  and  for 
the  semester  ending  February,  1916,  when  part  were  on  half  time, 
were  compared.1  Whether  the  girl  received  a  higher  grade,  the  same 


1  In  the  German  commercial  course,  Washington  Irving  High  School,  the  Pear- 
son co-efficients  of  correlation  between  the  marks  given  by  teachers  to  pupils  in 
June,  1915,  when  there  was  no  co-operative  work,  and  in  February,  1916,  when 
part  of  the  girls  had  been  in  the  co-operative  course  for  a  semester  are: 


CO-OPERATIVE 

NON-CO-OPERATIVE 

English  

.38 

.29 

German  

.38 

.54 

Bookkeeping  

.15 

.50 

Stenography-typewriting  

.22 

.52 

60 


grade,  or  a  lower  grade  than  the  previous  semester  was  noted.  In  the 
following  table,  Table  IV,  the  per  cent  of  the  class  receiving  a  lower 
grade,  the  same  grade,  or  a  higher  grade  for  February,  1916,  is  shown. 

TABLE  IV.— PERCENTAGE  OF  STUDENTS  RECEIVING  LESS,  THE 

SAME,  OR  MORE  IN  FEBRUARY,  1916,  THAN  IN  JUNE,  1915, 

WHEN  ALL  WERE  NON-CO-OPERATIVE 


ENGLISH 

GERMAN 

STENOGRAPHY- 
TTPEWRITINQ 

BOOKKEEPING 

Co-op. 

Non-co- 
op. 

Co-op. 

.  Non-co- 
op. 

Co-op. 

Non-co- 
op. 

Co-op. 

Non-co- 
op. 

_ 

72 

62 

28 

11 

37 

36 

78 

32 

0 

15 

11 

15 

14 

15 

21 

5 

9 

+ 

13 

27 

57 

» 

75 

48 

43 

17 

59 

It  will  be  seen  from  this  table  that  in  English  and  German  there 
was  some  difference  in  the  work  of  the  two  groups  in  favor  of  the  non- 
co-operative  students.  In  bookkeeping,  the  students  on  half  time 
actually  did  better  than  the  students  on  full  time.  In  stenography 
and  typewriting  there  was  poorer  work  done  on  the  part  of  the  co- 
operative group;  78  per  cent  of  the  co-operative  students  received  a 
lower  mark  than  the  preceding  semester,  while  but  32  per  cent  of  the 
non  co-operative  students  received  less.1  The  marks,  however, 
do  not  indicate  that  the  girls  on  half  time,  at  least  in  the  German 
commercial  course  at  Washington  Irving  High  School,  are  greatly 
handicapped  in  their  academic  work. 

The  average  for  each  girl  in  English,  bookkeeping,  German  and 
stenography-typewriting  was  secured  for  the  semester  ending  Febru- 
ary, 1916,  when  60  of  the  girls  had  been  on  half  time  in  school.  These 
averages  were  divided  into  quartiles,  and  the  results  are  shown  in  the 
accompanying  chart.  An  examination  of  these  averages  shows  that 
teachers  considered  that  the  girls  on  full  time  in  school  were  doing 
better  school  work  than  those  on  part  time.  It  is  also  evident  that 
the  girls  who  were  doing  the  poorest  work  were  full-time  girls.  Five 


'It  is  to  be  remembered  that  the  co-operative  girls  received  higher  marks  the 
previous  semester,  and  that  there  was,  therefore,  more  opportunity  for  the  non- 
co-operatives  to  improve. 

[61] 


of  them  are  lowest  in  the  averages  secured.  There  are  more  marks 
below  60  for  girls  on  full-time  work,  while  but  one  mark  below  60 
is  given  to  a  girl  on  half-time  work.  Girls  on  half  time  are  more 
likely  to  be  found  in  the  middle  quartiles.  Seventy-four  per  cent  of 
the  girls  who  were  working  on  half  time  are  in  the  two  middle  quar- 
tiles, while  but  40  per  cent  of  the  girls  on  full  time  are  in  these  two 
quartiles. 

TABLE  V.— AVERAGE  OF  GRADES  FOR  FEBRUARY,  1916,  GERMAN 
COMMERCIAL  COURSE,  WASHINGTON  IRVING  HIGH  SCHOOL 

Numbers  without  line — Co-operatives. 
Numbers  with  lines  below — Non-co-operatives. 

71 

68  71 

68  71 

68  69  70  71        73 
68  69  70  71        73        75 
6667686970717273747576 
6667686970717273747576 
66  67  68  69  70  71  72  73  74  75  76        78 
66  67  68  69  70  71  72  73  74  75  76        78 
66  67  68  69  70  71  72  73  74  75  76  77  78  79  80  81 
65  66  67  68  69  70  71  72  73  74  75  76  77  78  79  80  81 
61  62        65  66  67  68  69  70  71  72  73  74  75  76  77  78  79  80  81  82        84 
61  62  64  65  66  67  68  69  70  71  72  73  74  75  76  77  78  79  80  81  82  83  84  86 


CO-OPERATIVES 

PER  CENT 

NON-CO- 
OPERATIVES 

PER  CENT 

Lowest  quartile             .    . 

14 

23 

21 

26 

2nd  quartile 

23 

39 

12 

15 

3rd  quartile                  .    . 

15 

25 

20 

25 

Highest  quartile   

8 

13 

27 

34 

This  may  indicate  that  co-operative  work  tends  to  make  it  im- 
possible for  the  bright  students  to  do  exceptionally  good  work,  but 
that  the  motive  given  to  school  work  by  contact  with  a  position  in 
the  industrial  life  of  the  community  tends  to  keep  the  girl  with  little 
ability  from  dropping  behind  her  class.  These  graphs  show  that  at 
least  so  far  as  the  German  commercial  course  in  Washington  Irving 

[62] 


High  School  is  concerned,  there  is  a  tendency  on  the  part  of  the  co- 
operative girls  to  do  little  school  work  meriting  either  exceptionally 
high  or  exceptionally  low  grades. 

Summary 

The  marks  co-operative  students  are  given  in  school  do  not  indicate 
that  half  time  outside  of  school  handicaps  their  work  to  a  great 
extent.  Apparently  co-operative  work  results  in  students  doing 
average  school  work  and  tends  to  eliminate  exceptionally  good  as 
well  as  exceptionally  poor  work.  This  is  indicated  in  the  grades  for 
Washington  Irving  commercial  course.  In  Bushwick  High  School 
this  is  not  so  apparent  except  in  the  case  of  stenography  and  book- 
keeping. The  co-operative  system  is  new  in  New  York  schools  and 
is  still  the  cause  of  much  discussion.  It  is  probable  that  marks  given 
students  are  unconsciously  influenced  by  the  favorable  or  unfavorable 
attitude  of  the  teacher  toward  the  system.  This  is  truer  in  certain 
schools  than  in  others.  The  co-operative  system  points  to  a  method 
by  which  schools  could  provide  for  part  of  the  students  who  must 
support  themselves,  and  the  marks  studied  indicate  that  considerable 
time  may  be  devoted  to  activities  outside  the  school  without  ma- 
terially affecting  school  work. 


[63] 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  AND  THE  STUDENT  WHO 

MUST  WORK 

That  some  high  schools  are  aware  of  the  number  of  students  who  are 
partially  or  wholly  self-supporting  is  shown  by  the  investigations  they 
have  made,  some  of  the  results  of  which  are  presented  in  this  study. 
In  a  few  cases  organized  efforts  have  been  made  to  assist  the  large 
group  of  boys  and  girls  who  must  work  while  in  school.  In  the 
present  chapter  the  methods  used  in  a  Seattle  and  in  a  New  York 
high  school  in  helping  students  to  find  positions  will  be  briefly  de- 
scribed, and  a  plan  suggested  for  the  work  in  New  York  City  high 
schools. 

In  the  Broadway  High  School,  Seattle,  the  organization  for  assisting 
students  who  must  work1  "consists  primarily  of  a  Girls'  Club  and  a 
Boys'  Club,  each  under  the  supervision  of  faculty  members.  The 
Girls'  Club  adviser  has  one  teacher  who  gives  one  period  each  day  to 
the  placing  of  girls  who  need  to  work  for  part  school  time.  In  doing 
this  she  is  very  careful  to  get  full  information  about  the  student  who 
needs  the  place  and  then  makes  careful  inquiry  into  the  homes  de- 
siring girls  to  work.  The  Boys'  Club  follows  somewhat  the  same 
procedure.  The  head  of  the  commercial  department  has  placed  some 
students  during  the  time  they  are  attending  school.  This  work  gives 
a  closer  association  with  students  who  need  assistance.  The  com- 
munity is  quite  ready  to  co-operate  with  the  school  when  in  need  of 
positions  for  students.  By  working  in  co-operation  with  the  pupil, 
school  work  is  not  seriously  affected;  in  fact  more  attention  is  paid 
to  these  pupils  and  their  school  work  because  of  a  knowledge  of  their 
condition  and  need  of  assistance." 

Two  cards  are  kept  in  the  Girls'  Club.  One  contains  the  result  of 
the  investigation  of  the  position  for  which  a  girl  is  wanted.  Ques- 


From  a  letter  describing  the  work  in  Broadway  High  School,  Seattle. 

[641 


tions  are  asked  as  to  whether  the  employe  is  to  eat  with  the  family, 
number  of  hours  required  on  school  days,  Saturdays  and  Sundays, 
religion,  arrangements  for  outdoor  exercise,  and  the  kind  of  room  to  be 
given  the  girl.  In  addition,  the  employer  is  asked  to  furnish  refer- 
ences. The  other,  the  permanent  card  kept  for  the  girl,  contains 
together  with  her  school  record,  a  statement  as  to  whether  she  is 
self-supporting,  her  employment  record,  personal  appearance,  re- 
liability, and  character. 

De  Witt  Clinton  High  School  is  organizing  an  employment  office 
as  part  of  the  Students'  General  Organization  where  part-time  posi- 
tions can  be  found  for  students.  For  several  years  there  has  been 
interest  in  this  school  in  the  problem  of  the  boy  who  has  to  work  while 
attending  school  and  at  least  three  attempts  have  been  made  to 
ascertain  the  size  of  the  problem.  In  the  spring  of  1917  one  of  the 
instructors  was  assigned  to  the  task  of  organizing  the  placement 
bureau.  He  was  not  relieved  of  his  academic  classes,  and  what  has 
been  accomplished  has  been  done  in  addition  to  class  work  with  the 
assistance  of  two  competent  students. 

Before  Easter,  1917,  postals  were  sent  out  to  milliners  and  florists 
in  which  it  was  stated  that  boys  in  the  high  school  were  desirous  of 
securing  work  during  the  Easter  holidays.  Positions  were  secured 
for  200  boys  as  a  result  of  these  400  postals.  The  salary  paid  averaged 
$1.50  a  day.  There  have  been  in  addition  numerous  requests  for 
boys  to  do  part-time  work  since  Easter  as  a  result  of  these  postals. 

When  a  request  for  help  is  telephoned  De  Witt  Clinton  High 
School,  a  card  is  filled  out  with  the  firm's  name,  address,  and  business. 
The  hours  required  are  ascertained,  the  compensation  to  be  paid, 
and  the  qualifications  demanded  of  the  boys  are  also  entered  on  this 
card.  There  is  a  place  for  the  names  of  the  boys  recommended,  a 
record  as  to  whether  they  secure  the  position  or  not,  and  a  blank  space 
for  remarks. 

A  second  card  is  filled  out  giving  the  location  of  the  firm,  hours 
required,  nature  of  work,  salary,  age  applicant  must  be,  and  any  other 
requirements  the  employer  may  have  made.     These  frequently  include 
race.    This  card  is  posted  on  the  bulletin  board. 
5  [651 


When  a  boy  comes  to  the  office  and  states  that  he  wants  to  apply  for 
the  position  he  is  given  a  card  of  introduction  to  the  firm,  and  to  this 
card  is  attached  another  which  the  boy  must  fill  out  and  return  to  the 
office,  stating  the  results  of  his  application. 

In  addition  to  a  permanent  file  of  firms  applying  for  help,  another 
file  of  names  of  boys  who  have  secured  work  is  kept.  On  these  cards 
are  the  boy's  name,  class,  address,  and  blanks  for  the  names  of  em- 
ployers with  length  of  employment,  salary,  reasons  for  leaving,  and  a 
permanent  record  of  scholarship. 

Though  this  plan  has  opened  up  many  opportunities  for  boys  who 
desire  to  assist  in  supporting  themselves  while  attending  school, 
there  are  certain  weaknesses  in  it  which  are  recognized  by  the  school. 
The  present  plan  is  better  than  the  former  one  by  which  boys  fre- 
quently went  from  store  to  store  looking  for  work,  and  took  the  first 
position  which  was  offered  them  without  the  opportunity  of  securing 
the  advice  of  a  representative  of  the  school.  Under  the  present  plan 
the  teacher  in  charge  of  this  work  interviews  and  knows  the  scholar- 
ship standing  of  those  students  going  out  into  part-time  positions  se- 
cured through  the  office.  He  is  also  able  to  watch  the  effect  which 
outside  work  has  upon  scholarship  through  the  permanent  record 
card  kept  for  each  boy  who  is  working.  The  teacher  in  charge  of  this 
placement  work  is  unable,  however,  to  know  many  of  the  boys 
personally.  He  is  teaching  his  own  classes  during  the  day,  and  has 
but  a  brief  interview  with  the  boys  who  must  work.  There  is  little 
opportunity  to  ascertain  what  the  home  conditions  of  the  boy  are  or 
to  secure  further  information  concerning  the  position  than  is  given  by 
the  employer  over  the  telephone.  The  short  interview  which  the 
boy  has  with  the  teacher  in  charge  does  present  an  opportunity  for 
a  little  advice,  but  such  advice  is  necessarily  based  on  a  very  limited 
knowledge  of  the  situation.  The  present  plan,  however,  is  a  great 
advance  over  the  former  in  which  there  was  little  recognition  of  the 
working  boy's  problem.  The  school  now  realizes  that  there  is  a 
problem  to  be  dealt  with,  and  in  the  bureau  organized  has  shown  an 
interest  in  dealing  with  it. 

The  problem  would  seem  to  be  threefold.  There  is,  first  and  fore- 

[661 


most,  the  welfare  of  the  boy  to  be  considered.  Some  of  the  positions 
which  high  school  boys  are  filling  are  positions  in  which  they  earn  less 
than  they  should  for  the  amount  of  time  they  give.  In  finding  part- 
time  positions  for  school  boys  an  important  consideration  is  the 
amount  the  boy  earns.  One  of  the  first  essentials  in  placing  a  high 
school  boy  in  a  part-time  position  would  seem  to  be  a  study  of  his  home 
to  determine  to  what  extent  self-support  on  his  part  is  necessary.  If 
the  boy  has  to  be  absolutely  self-supporting,  or  has  to  pay  his  board, 
he  must  be  found  a  position  where  the  remuneration  is  sufficient  for 
this  purpose.  The  welfare  of  the  boy  demands  that  this  fundamental 
need  of  sufficient  income  to  maintain  his  standard  of  living  be  met. 
If  the  necessary  income  cannot  be  gained  from  a  part-time  position, 
and  there  is  no  scholarship  fund  available,  it  would  seem  to  be  the 
duty  of  the  adviser  to  show  the  boy  the  necessity  for  postponing  his 
education  until  such  time  as  he  has  sufficient  funds  unless  the  co- 
operative classes  meet  his  needs. 

Many  boys  are  giving  so  much  time  to  their  outside  work  that 
little  time  for  school  work  and  less  for  recreation  remains.  There 
is  some  indication  that  some  boys  who  work  more  than  twenty  hours 
a  week  are  handicapped  in  their  school  work,  and  boys  who  are  em- 
ployed in  remunerative  positions  for  more  than  ten  hours  a  week 
have  their  recreation  cut  to  about  one-half  that  of  the  other  boys. 
Boys  applying  for  positions  should  be  advised  regarding  the  number 
of  hours  they  are  to  engage  in  work  outside  school.  The  school 
should  also  ascertain  the  number  of  hours  students  are  working  at 
home  or  in  positions  they  have  secured  without  the  help  of  the  school. 
Where  it  is  necessary,  students  must  be  told  to  devote  fewer  hours  to 
outside  work.  If  the  school  assumes  the  responsibility  for  assisting 
boys  in  finding  positions  where  they  may  work  part  time — and  it  is 
difficult  to  see  how  under  the  present  situation  in  some  of  the  high 
schools  in  New  York  City  she  can  avoid  this  responsibility — then  she 
must  also  be  ready  to  assume  responsibility  that  the  boy's  health  is 
not  impaired  by  excessively  long  hours.  The  school  cannot  justify 
the  long  hours  which  some  of  the  boys  at  present  are  giving  to  part- 
time  positions.  In  some  cases  the  remedy  is  apparent.  Where  boys 

[671 


are  working  long  hours  and  are  earning  very  low  wages,  the  school 
should  advise  a  change  in  work. 

From  the  standpoint  of  the  boy  there  is  also  the  necessity  for  placing 
him  in  a  part-time  position  where,  in  addition  to  running  into  no  moral 
or  physical  danger,  there  may  be  so  far  as  possible  educational  value 
along  the  lines  of  his  vocational  interests.  Seventy-one  per  cent  of  a 
group  of  high  school  boys  who  had  found  positions  for  themselves  and 
reported,  stated  that  the  thing  they  were  doing  had  no  connection 
with  what  they  intended  doing  in  later  life.  Only  6  per  cent  of  the 
boys  answering  the  question  described  the  work  they  were  doing  as 
the  same  kind  of  work  they  intended  entering  in  later  life.  The 
teacher  in  charge  of  the  placement  work  can  do  much  to  remedy  this 
condition  by  ascertaining  boys'  interests  and  by  securing  opportunities 
for  employment  along  the  lines  of  these  interests.  The  success  of  co- 
ordinators in  some  of  the  co-operative  classes  in  the  high  schools  of  New 
York  City  is  an  indication  of  what  might  be  done  in  this  work  in  academic 
schools.  A  position  as  office  boy  in  a  doctor's  office  might  be  given 
to  a  boy  who  was  planning  under  this  arrangement  to  enter  medicine. 

From  the  standpoint  of  the  school  there  is  the  necessity  for  seeing 
that  the  boy  in  his  efforts  to  support  himself  is  not  so  handicapped 
that  he  is  unable  to  meet  the  class  requirements.  Doubtless  through 
the  teacher  in  charge  of  placement  a  more  sympathetic  attitude  to- 
ward students  who  are  required  to  work  might  be  shown  by  some  of 
the  class-room  teachers  than  is  occasionally  the  case  at  present. 
However,  the  school  has  a  right  to  expect  that  outside  work  shall  not 
seriously  interfere  with  the  work  required  of  students  in  school. 
That  there  is  in  most  cases  little  danger  of  this  in  vocational  courses, 
at  least,  is  indicated  by  the  study  of  the  co-operative  students  in 
Washington  Irving  High  School  and  in  Bushwick  High  School,  and 
by  the  study  of  the  students  in  academic  courses  who  are  working 
outside  of  school  hours  in  De  Witt  Clinton.  The  greater  elimination 
of  working  boys  deserves  attention  of  high  school  authorities. 

Lastly,  from  the  standpoint  of  the  employer,1  there  are  certain 


1  Data  are  not  presented  on  this  point  because  of  the  size  of  the  problem  and  the 
difficulty  of  securing  information. 

[68] 


considerations.  He  has  a  right  to  expect  that  the  school  will  send 
him  a  student  who  is  really  interested  in  working.  He  has  a  right  to 
expect  that  the  boy  will  give  good  service  for  the  money  received. 
The  danger  in  the  present  method  employed  at  De  Witt  Clinton 
High  School  from  the  employer's  standpoint,  is  that  boys  who  have 
no  real  need  or  intention  of  earning  their  way  through  school  may 
see  the  notices  of  positions  on  the  bulletin  board  and  apply  for  them, 
in  the  hope  of  securing  an  easy  place  where  there  will  be  a  high  re- 
muneration for  little  effort  expended. 

The  present  system  in  De  Witt  Clinton  High  School  fails  to  meet 
the  responsibility  which  should  be  felt  for  the  boy's  welfare.  Under 
the  arrangement  whereby  a  teacher  giving  full  time  to  school  work  is 
employed  to  do  the  placement  and  advisory  work  outside  of  class 
hours,  there  is  no  opportunity  for  ascertaining  home  conditions  of  the 
boy,  or  for  consultation  with  parents  to  determine  to  what  extent 
self-support  is  really  necessary.  The  impossibility  of  knowing  the 
boys  one  has  to  deal  with  when  so  little  time  can  be  devoted  to  the 
work,  makes  a  consideration  of  the  boy's  part-time  position  in  the 
light  of  his  future  vocation  very  difficult.  Some  attention  can  be 
given  to  the  number  of  hours  required  of  the  boy  who  is  offered  a 
position,  but  little  can  be  done  for  the  boys  who  are  at  present  at 
work  and  whose  interests  demand  attention.  Under  the  present 
system  it  is  possible,  through  the  marks  given  the  students  in  different 
subjects,  to  note  the  effect  upon  his  work  of  part-time  employment, 
but  there  is  little  time  for  consultation  with  teachers  and  students 
regarding  the  class-room  work.  The  teacher  in  charge  has  no  oppor- 
tunity to  investigate  the  position  to  which  the  boy  is  being  sent,  and 
when  the  boy  applies  for  the  position  no  more  is  known  regarding 
it  than  is  learned  over  the  telephone.  The  school  cannot  feel  that 
it  has  met  its  responsibility  to  the  employer,  a  responsibility  which 
requires  it  to  send  him  a  student  who  is  actually  desirous  of  working, 
nor  is  there  any  possibility  of  ascertaining  later  how  successful  the 
boy  has  been  in  his  position. 

To  provide  for  a  more  efficient  system  of  placement  work  in  part- 
time  positions  would  require  that  practically  the  entire  time  of  a  man 

[691 


or  woman  in  a  high  school  be  devoted  to  the  work,  with  such  assist- 
ance as  might  be  needed.  He  would  have  the  child,  the  family,  the 
teacher,  and  the  employer  to  deal  with.  Application  for  a  part- 
time  position  would  in  most  cases  necessitate  a  study  of  the  home 
and  the  family  of  the  boy  to  determine  to  what  extent  the  boy  must 
be  self-supporting.  Acquaintance  with  the  boy  and  his  teachers  would 
indicate  what  kind  of  work  the  boy  was  fitted  for.  Interviews  with 
the  employers  before  and  after  the  boy  secured  his  position  would 
show  the  kind  of  position,  the  type  of  boy  wanted  and,  later,  the 
success  of  the  boy  in  the  position.  The  teacher  could  furnish  infor- 
mation as  to  the  boy's  scholarship.  The  man  in  charge  of  this  work 
with  students  who  are  at  least  in  part  self-supporting,  would  have  a 
position  which  would  be  comparable  to  that  of  the  co-ordinator  in  a 
co-operative  course.  The  co-ordinator's  emphasis  is  on  vocational 
training,  though  the  opportunity  for  self-support  is  a  factor  considered. 
The  position  in  an  academic  high  school  would  emphasize  the  oppor- 
tunity for  self-support,  giving  as  much  consideration  as  was  possible 
to  vocational  training. 

The  general  plan  of  organizing  in  the  academic  high  school  a  bureau 
to  meet  the  problem  of  self-support,  in  charge  of  a  trained  social 
worker  and  placement  secretary,  would  necessitate  inter-high  school 
relations  to  secure  maximum  efficiency.  There  is  little  attempt  at 
co-operation  between  the  high  schools  which  at  present  maintain 
employment  secretaries  in  connection  with  their  vocational  courses. 
One  school  may  secure  positions  formerly  held  by  students  in  another 
school  by  providing  help  at  a  lower  rate  per  hour.  Where  there  are 
more  calls  for  students  to  work  than  there  are  students  desiring  to 
work,  as  was  the  case  in  De  Witt  Clinton  High  School  in  the  spring 
of  1917,  the  surplus  positions  are  lost  because  no  arrangement  exists 
by  which  these  positions  can  be  turned  over  to  another  school.  There 
is  no  provision  by  which  opportunities  for  work  might  be  given  the 
students  of  the  high  school  nearest  the  position. 

It  would  seem  possible  to  develop  under  the  associate  superin- 
tendent in  charge  of  part-time  co-operative  and  continuation  classes 
under  the  Department  of  Education  in  the  City  of  New  York,  a 

[70] 


movement  to  centralize  the  work  with  self-supporting  students  in 
all  the  high  schools  of  the  city.  This  office  already  has  established 
the  necessary  relations  with  industrial  and  commercial  establishments 
for  the  placing  of  students  in  the  co-operative  courses.  The  co- 
ordinators are  in  touch  with  business  conditions  and  are  following 
students  in  their  positions  and  insuring  them  the  maximum  oppor- 
tunity for  training.  Co-ordinators  already  have  found  positions 
which  are  not  available  for  co-operative  students  but  which  might  be 
filled  by  students  who  desire  to  work  outside  of  school  hours.  There  is 
no  method  at  present  by  which  these  positions  and  the  students  who 
must  in  part  support  themselves  can  be  brought  together.  A  bureau 
organized  in  the  central  office  with  which  the  coordinators  are  in 
close  contact  would  make  available  such  positions  to  high  schools 
and  would  utilize  co-ordinators  in  securing  further  opportunities  for 
high  school  students  to  work. 

An  experiment  has  just  been  started  in  the  office  of  the  associate 
superintendent  in  charge  of  part-time  co-operative  and  continuation 
schools  to  place  students  for  the  summer  of  1917.  The  large  number 
of  men  leaving  for  war  service  has  created  a  demand  for  high  school 
students  to  fill  positions.  A  co-ordinator  has  been  appointed  to  co- 
operate with  the  high  schools,  ascertain  what  opportunities  for  em- 
ployment exist,  and  try  to  fill  them.  The  work  is  planned  for  the 
summer  only.  Superintendent  Maxwell  addressed  a  letter  to  all  the 
high  school  principals  requesting  that  they  forward  lists  of  names  of 
students  desiring  to  work  during  the  summer.  Many  applications 
for  positions  have  been  received  by  the  co-ordinator  in  charge. 
During  the  first  week  150  placements  were  made.1  There  was  in  each 
case  an  investigation  of  the  position  and  an  interview  with  the  student 
placed,  either  through  a  teacher  in  the  building  or  through  the  co- 
ordinator himself.  Many  of  the  industrial  establishments  taking 
students  for  the  summer  have  been  co-operating  with  the  schools 
under  the  co-operative  system. 

A  continuation  of  this  plan  during  the  school  year,  with  the  de- 
velopment of  a  local  bureau  in  each  school,  would  make  possible 

1  Data  secured  from  office  in  Brooklyn  of  the  Department  of  Education. 

[711 


sympathetic,  intelligent  treatment  of  the  problem  of  self-support. 
Assurance  could  be  given  that  a  position  offered  to  a  student  was  with 
a  reliable  firm,  where  there  would  be  fair  treatment  and  no  exploita- 
tion of  him  because  of  the  necessity  he  was  under  of  finding  remunera- 
tive work  outside  of  school  hours.  The  personal  relations  which  have 
already  been  established  by  co-ordinators  with  employers  would  be 
an  asset  in  opening  opportunities  for  students  outside  of  school 
hours.  A  central  office  force  co-operating  with  the  co-ordinators 
could  supervise  the  work  of  students  as  is  done  now  in  the  case  of 
co-operative  students.  Finally,  through  the  local  bureau  and  through 
the  central  office,  there  could  be  very  definite  co-operation  between 
the  school,  the  family,  and  the  employer. 


72] 


CHAPTER  VI 
SCHOLARSHIPS 

The  problem  of  the  large  number  of  high  school  students  who  are  em- 
ployed in  part-time  work  is  not  solved  by  the  development  of  em- 
ployment offices  in  high  schools  for  the  purpose  of  placing  students 
in  positions  to  prevent  their  exploitation.  The  appointment  of 
special  members  of  the  staffs  of  high  schools  to  advise  with  students 
who  must  be  in  part  self-supporting  is  not  a  solution  of  the  problem. 
Both  methods,  together  with  co-operation  with  the  present  ad- 
ministrative organization  of  the  co-operative  classes  in  New  York, 
would  assist  students  who  are  working  while  attending  school.  The 
problem  of  the  working  student,  however,  is  more  fundamental  than 
either  of  the  above  solutions  would  seem  to  indicate. 

A  study  of  the  number  of  students  who  are  working,  the  kind  of 
work  they  are  doing,  their  remuneration,  and  the  number  of  hours 
they  are  employed  outside  of  the  school  leads  one  to  the  question, 
Is  not  the  work  done  in  order  to  secure  funds  actually  handicapping 
the  student  in  his  course  to  such  an  extent  as  to  render  him  of  less 
value  to  society?  The  present  study  has  not  answered  that  question, 
nor  are  any  data  at  hand  which  will  answer  it.  The  investigations 
previously  described  indicate  that  students  working  outside  of  school 
hours  are  doing  generally  as  efficient  school  work  as  those  not  working. 
As  has  already  been  suggested  this  may  be  due  to  the  fact  that  the 
boys  in  high  school  who  are  supporting  themselves  either  wholly 
or  in  part  are  a  selected  group.  The  data  already  presented  indicate 
that  there  is  more  elimination  among  the  students  who  are  working 
outside  of  school  hours  than  among  those  who  are  not  working.  It 
may  be  that  the  marks  working  students  secure  are  not  a  measure  of 
their  real  ability.  These  marks  are  the  result  of  work  carried  on  in 

[73] 


spite  of  great  handicaps  in  many  cases,  and  were  the  student  free  to 
devote  all  his  time  to  his  studies,  it  might  well  be  that  his  school  work 
would  be  greatly  improved. 

Another  problem  which  has  frequently  been  considered  by  the 
writer  and  upon  which  there  are  no  data,  is  the  effect  of  long  hours  of 
outside  work  on  the  health  of  the  student.  Students  who  are  working 
have  been  shown  to  have  much  less  recreation  than  those  who  are  not 
working.  This  is  j  ust  as  true  of  hours  spent  in  the  gymnasium  and  the 
athletic  field  as  of  recreation  less  valuable  from  the  standpoint  of 
physical  development.  And  again  there  is  no  method  of  measuring 
the  loss  in  the  development  of  the  social  life  of  the  boy  due  to  the 
fact  that  he  is  unable  to  participate  in  as  many  school  activities  as 
the  boy  who  does  not  work.  Many  interviews  with  students  made  the 
writer  feel  that  an  enormous  amount  of  energy  is  being  used  in  earning 
small  amounts  of  money,  and  that  this  energy  might  be  expended 
frequently  in  some  direction  which  would  mean  more  to  the  indi- 
vidual. This  seemed  especially  true  in  the  case  of  many  foreign- 
born  boys.  Their  contacts  with  other  students  in  school  activities 
outside  the  class  room  would  seem  to  be  well  worth  emphasizing, 
for  frequently  there  is  no  other  opportunity  to  come  in  touch  with 
American  life.  At  least  two  of  the  boys  who  were  interviewed  re- 
garding their  athletic  activities  replied  that  they  engaged  in  none, 
as  athletics  did  not  bring  in  any  financial  return.  Altogether  it  may 
well  be  that  the  student  who  is  self-supporting  in  the  secondary  school 
thereby  makes  himself  a  less  efficient  future  member  of  society. 

In  the  United  States  secondary  education  is  free  to  all.  We  have 
indicated  our  belief  that  for  every  one  who  can  profit  by  a  secondary 
education,  free  opportunity  should  be  offered,  but  at  the  same  time 
to  a  certain  extent  we  are  actually  selecting  those  who  are  to  profit 
by  it  from  the  upper  economic  classes.  Where  the  student  comes 
from  a  family  which  is  unable  to  give  clothing  and  living  expenses 
for  more  than  the  period  of  compulsory  school  attendance,  society 
provides  no  organized  means  of  carrying  him  on  to  higher  education 
no  matter  how  promising  he  may  be.  A  theory  that  education  should 
be  free  to  all  does  actually  result  in  failing  to  provide  means  by  which 

[741 


those  of  the  lowest  economic  classes  can  continue  in  school,  unless 
they  are  able  to  support  themselves  wholly  or  in  part. 

In  England,  although  secondary  education  is  not  free,  there  is  a 
recognition  that  ability  wherever  it  may  be,  should  be  given  an  oppor- 
tunity to  develop.  Free  places  are  very  generally  provided  in  sec- 
ondary schools.  All  state-aided  secondary  schools  with  a  few  ex- 
ceptions are  required  to  provide  25  per  cent  of  their  places  free, 
and  the  actual  number  of  free  places  in  secondary  schools  receiving 
grants  from  the  government  was  33  per  cent  of  the  attendance  in 
1913-14. 

Moreover,  in  England  a  system  of  maintenance  grants  has  been 
developed  for  children  of  limited  means.  In  1911-12  there  were 
38,000  scholarships  for  general  education  not  of  a  technical  nature, 
and  of  these,  three-eighths,  or  13,250,  carried  maintenance  allowances 
in  addition.  Under  this  system  a  child  beginning  at  the  age  of  eleven 
or  twelve  may  be  given  a  scholarship  with  a  small  maintenance 
allowance,  and  if  his  school  work  merits  it,  be  granted  further  scholar- 
ships carrying  larger  maintenance  allowances  until  he  has  completed 
the  university. 

There  are  two  theories  upon  which  the  award  of  scholarships 
might  be  made.  The  grant  might  be  a  reward  for  special  ability  and 
industry,  the  prize  to  be  obtained  only  by  special  effort  and  self-denial. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  scholarships  might  be  freely  bestowed  on  all 
who  show  a  fair  measure  of  capacity  and  attainment.  The  latter 
policy  is  the  one  held  in  issuing  scholarships  for  secondary  education 
in  England,  and  is  especially  marked  in  the  distribution  of  scholar- 
ships by  the  London  County  Council. 

The  two  principles  which  seem  most  fundamental  in  the  awarding 
of  scholarships  and  maintenance  funds  in  England  are  those  of  ade- 
quacy and  the  financial  ability  of  the  parent.  Students  holding 
scholarships  to  which  maintenance  funds  are  attached  are  prohibited 
from  holding  any  other  scholarship  at  the  time,  nor  can  such  students 
take  any  employment  outside  of  their  school  work.  Beginning  with 
a  maintenance  grant  of  about  $30  while  the  scholarship  holder  is 
from  eleven  to  fourteen  years  old,  the  amount  increases  to  $90  from 

[75] 


the  age  of  fourteen  to  sixteen,  and  from  $100  to  $125  the  following 
three  years.  These  are  the  grants  of  the  London  County  Council 
and  vary  in  different  parts  of  the  country.  These  amounts  vary 
also  to  correspond  with  differences  in  the  income  of  parents. 

The  second  principle,  the  financial  ability  of  parents,  is  funda- 
mental to  the  entire  system  of  granting  maintenance  funds.  In 
theory,  assistance  is  not  to  be  granted  unless  the  family  of  the  boy  is 
unable  to  support  him.  In  some  parts  of  England  parents  must 
assure  the  local  authorities  of  this  fact,  and  in  still  other  places  an 
investigation  is  made  to  determine  the  financial  standing  of  the 
student's  family.  In  general  where  the  parents'  income  exceeds  two 
thousand  dollars  no  assistance  is  given  the  child,  and  the  amounts 
cited  in  the  preceding  paragraph  are  for  children  whose  parents  have 
an  income  of  less  than  eight  hundred  dollars. 

As  has  been  pointed  out  at  the  beginning  of  the  chapter,  we  do  not 
know  in  the  United  States  what  the  cost  to  society  and  to  the  indi- 
vidual may  be  of  our  system  of  free  schools  and  the  accompanying 
self-support  on  the  part  of  many  students.  The  expenditure  of  much 
effort,  the  possible  impairment  of  health,  the  cutting  down  of  leisure 
hours,  and  the  impossibility  of  identifying  oneself  with  extra-cur- 
ricular activities  because  of  long  working  hours  outside  the  class, 
doubtless  result  in  handicapping  many  students  in  their  later  achieve- 
ments. Some  become  discouraged,  and  the  higher  elimination  among 
working  students  is  probably  in  part  due  to  this. 

We  have  recognized  in  our  higher  institutions  the  need  for  scholar- 
ships sometimes  carrying  maintenance  funds.  These  are  awarded 
on  the  theory  that  society  as  a  whole  will  benefit  by  the  student 
entering  the  profession  for  which  he  is  preparing,  that  the  money 
cost  of  the  scholarship  or  fellowship  will  be  returned  to  society  in  the 
service  later  to  be  rendered  by  the  individual.  Recognition  of  the 
handicap  of  outside  work  for  scholarship  holders  is  at  least  occa- 
sionally indicated  by  the  prohibition  of  other  employment.  We  do 
to  a  certain  extent  in  higher  education  recognize  the  advisability  of 
picking  men  and  women  of  ability  and  giving  them  free  a  higher 
education. 

[761 


In  England  there  is  the  same  recognition  of  the  necessity  for  se- 
curing the  ablest  members  of  society  regardless  of  their  economic 
standing  for  the  professions.  However,  much  more  emphasis  is 
placed  upon  this  policy  than  in  the  United  States,  and  the  entire 
scholarship  system  is  frankly  stated  to  be  for  the  purpose  of  securing 
trained  leaders  in  government  positions  and  in  professional  callings. 
With  this  in  mind  the  ablest  in  the  elementary  schools  are  chosen  and 
given  opportunities  to  continue  their  studies  even  though  from  poor 
homes.  This  would  seem  to  be  a  much  more  consistent  policy  than 
is  that  of  New  York  City.  Here  the  child  from  the  poor  home  earns 
his  way  through  high  school.  He  may  be  offered,  to  be  sure,  an 
ccasional  scholarship  with  maintenance  in  our  higher  institutions. 


[77 


APPENDIX 

HIGH  SCHOOL  STUDENTS  IN  NEW  YORK 


EARNINGS  PER  HOUR 

DEWlTT 

CLINTON 

WADLEIGH 

GIRLS'  EASTERN 
DISTRICT 

BOYS'  EASTERN 
DISTRICT 

$0.01-0.05 

3 

0 

0 

1 

0.06-0.10 

49 

6 

15 

17 

0.11-0.15 

83 

4 

11 

13 

0.16-0.20 

69 

5 

2 

18 

0.21-0.25 

52 

11 

5 

25 

0.26-0.30 

10 

1 

5 

5 

0.31-0.35 

10 

2 

3 

5 

0.36-0.40 

16 

3 

1 

4 

0.41-0.45 

9 

1 

3 

2 

0.46-0.50 

22 

9 

16 

14 

0.51-0.55 

1 

2 

1 

0.56-0.60 

3 

•• 

•• 

2 

0.61-0.65 

4 

2 

0.66-0.70 

4 

.  . 

'i 

.  . 

0.71-0.75 

7 

1 

i 

1 

0.76-0.80 

2 

•• 

•v 

•• 

0.81-0.85 

0 

0.86-0.90 

1 

. 

.  . 

.  . 

0.91-0.95 

1 

.  . 

.  . 

0.96-0.1.00 

5 

'7 

i 

•• 

1.10 

1 

1.22 

'i 

.  . 

1.37 

1 

, 

.  . 

1.40 

1 

-• 

•  « 

1.50 

1 

.. 

1.66 

i 

. 

i 

1.70 

i 

.  . 

.  . 

1.75 

1 

•••  . 

2.00 

1 

2.37 

'i 

2.70 

i 

.  . 

4.00 

1 

.  . 

6.00 

\  \ 

($3.00  for  one- 

1 

half  hour) 

[78 


SUMMER  WORK  OF  84  DE  WITT  CLINTON  STUDENTS 


HOURS  PER  WEEK 

NUMBER  OF  BOYS 

SALARY  PE 

a  WEEK 

1-  10 

6 

$1.50 

1 

11-  20 

5 

2.00 

1 

21-  30 

9 

2.50 

3 

31-  40 

1 

3.00 

5 

41-  50 

32 

3.50 

1 

51-  60 

22 

4.00 

10 

61-  70 

1 

4.50 

2 

71-  80 

2 

5.00 

9 

81-  90 

3 

5.50 

4 

91-100 

1 

6.00 

25 

101-110 

1 

6.50 

2 

7.00 

7 

. 

8.00 

3 

9.00 

1 

10.00 

4 

12.00 

1 

14.00 

2 

/ 

15.00 

1 

35.00 

1 

•  • 

50.00 

1 

84 

Median,  $6.00 
Quartile,  4.25 
Quartile,  6.75 
Average,  6.79 


WORK  WHICH  BOYS  WORKING  FOR  WAGES  ARE  DOING 


EASTERN  DISTRICT 

DE  WITT  CLINTON 

Teaching  

58 

27 

Newspaper  

43 

35 

Musical  work  

19 

2 

Lighting  lamps 

9 

Library  work 

25 

Work  in  stores 

58 

14 

Order,  delivery  boy      ...        

48 

1 

Clerk  

16 

Pawn  broker's  shop  

1 

Office 

4 

Collecting,  soliciting  

4 

2 

Typewriter 

3 

Pasting,  cutting,  clipping 

1 

Bookkeeping.  ...                                      ... 

6 

2 

Office  boy  

2 

Address  envelopes  

1 

Show-card  writer  

1 

Messenger   . 

3 

Telephone  

4 

R.R.  mail  clerk  

1 

Post-office  clerk  

1 

Collecting  advertising 

1 

Dental  laboratory                               

1 

79 


WORK  WHICH  BOYS  WORKING  FOR  WAGES  ARE  DOING  (Continued) 


EASTERN  DISTRICT       DE  WITT  CLINTON 


Assistant  insurance  agent .  .  . 

Distributing  circulars 

Collecting  books 

Writing  bills 

Waiter 

Manager  restaurant 

Lunch  room 

Carrying  breakfasts 

Coat-room  boy 

Bell-hop 

General  work 

Renting  umbrellas 

Painting 

Peddling  apples 

Printing 

Beating  rugs 

Selling  stamps 

Milk  wagon 

Acolyte 

Chauffeur 

Selling  candy,  theater 

Bowling  alley 

Usher 

Tending  furnace 

Barber 

Brush  boy,  barber  shop .... 

Camera  work 

Spin  wool 

Carry  trunks 

Paper  boxes 

Blocking  gloves 

Detective 

Mechanical  work 

Pasting  paper  on  umbrellas . 

Selling  golf  balls 

Advertising  boy 

Factory 

Collecting  life  insurance 

Writing  letters 

Display  covers 

Look  over  books 

Cleaning 

Tire  on  auto 

Stage  work 

Amateur  actor 

Serve  summons 

Housework 

Overhaul  sewing  machine .  . 

Preaching 

Express 

Carrying  coal 

Subscriptions  for  magazines . 

Chop  wood 

Cashier 

Cleaning  store 

Setting  up  pins 

Electrical  work 


80 


WHAT  HIGH  SCHOOL  GIRLS  DO  TO  EARN  MONEY  WHILE 
IN  SCHOOL 


WAD  LEIGH 

EASTERN 
DISTRICT 

WADLEIGH 

EASTERN 
DISTRICT 

Teaching  
Music  
English 

25 
17 

2 

20 
21 
5 

Housework  
Wash  windows.  . 
Sewing  

8 
1 

2 

8 

Hebrew 

2 

Waitress  

5 

5 

Dancing 

2 

1 

Minding  baby.  .  . 

1 

Sewing  
Store 

2 

7 

21 

Play  for  dances  .  .  . 
Play  for  society  .... 

1 

Saleslady 

3 

9 

Posing       

Wrapper     

1 

Embroidery  

Clerical      

6 

Dressing  

Cashier 

1 

3 

Paint    cards,   color 

Typewriting.  .  .  . 

1 

negatives  

1 

Cash  girl 

I 

Serve  as  maid 

1 

Office  work  
Stenography 

8 
1 

3 

Prize    for    suffrage 
speech 

1 

•• 

Circulars 

1 

Millinery            .  .  . 

1 

1 

Address     e  n  - 

Assist  dentist  

1 

velopes  

1 

3 

Write  composition. 

1 

Bookkeepin  g 

1 

Knitting    

1 

Auditing.  . 

1 

NUMBER  OF  TIMES  RECREATION  ACTIVITIES  WERE  ENGAGED  IN 

DURING  WEEK 


NUMBER  OP 
TIMES 

BOYS  NOT 
WORKING 

BOYS  WORKING 
10  HOURS  OR 
MORE  FOR  PAY 

LESS  THAN  10 
HOURS  FOR  PAY 

10  HOURS  OR 
MORE  WITH- 
OUT PAY 

LESS  THAN  10 
HOURS  WITH- 
OUT PAY 

0 

3 

1 

1 

1 

2 

2 

2 

6 

1 

I 

3 

3 

4 

1 

1 

1 

4 

6 

3 

3 

.  . 

5 

2 

1 

1 

6 

4 

, 

3 

. 

7 

5 

2 

m 

.  . 

1 

8 

5 

1 

2 

3 

3 

9 

7 

1 

3 

2 

2 

10 

4 

3 

1 

1 

11 

9 

1 

2 

1 

1 

12 

4 

2 

• 

2 

13 

1 

4 

1 

1 

3 

14 

3 

e  . 

1 

1 

2 

15 

4 

1 

1 

1 

16 

3 

1 

1 

17 

2 

€ 

1 

18 

1 

1 

19 

1 

".  * 

. 

. 

1 

20 

1 

. 

.  . 

21 

2 

.  . 

22 

> 

1 

23 

. 

24 

2 

.  . 

. 

25 

.  . 

.  . 

26 

.  . 

27 

, 

. 

.  . 

28 

i 

•• 

•• 

•  • 

[81] 


RECREATION  OF  161  DE  WITT  CLINTON  BOYS  DURING 
ONE  WEEK 


ACTIVITIES 


WORKING 
BOYS 


BOYS  NOT 
WORKING 


PER  CENT 
OF  BOYS 
WORKING 


PER  CENT  OF 
BOYS  NOT 
WORKING 


Movies 28 

Theater 34 

Pool 6 

Dancing 9 

Walking 57 

Clubs 44 

Gymnasium 21 

Swimming 18 

Athletic  act 28 

Cards 8 

Checkers 25 

Football 1 

Chess 5 

Dominoes 4 

Bicycling 5 

Reading 2 

Skating 2 

Street  play 2 

Tennis 1 

Handball 

Violin 1 

Lottoes 1 

Basketball 1 

Croquet 1 

Games  at  home 4 

Soccer 

Golf 

Recreation  center 

Billiards,  home 


39 

45 

6 

16 

68 

44 

21 

23 

41 

11 

10 

4 

4 

2 

4 

2 

2 

i 

1 


36 
44 
8 
11 
73 
56 
27 
23 
36 
10 
32 


47 
54 
7 
19 
82 
53 
25 
28 
49 
13 
12 


Of  the  boys  who  were  working,  5  mentioned  no  recreation  during 
the  preceding  week;  1  of  the  boys  who  were  not  working  reported  no 
recreation. 


Kinds  of  Work  Co-operative  Students  are  Doing 

The  descriptions  of  the  kinds  of  work  co-operative  girls  are  doing 
are  presented  because  of  the  bearing  they  have  on  the  success  of 
co-ordinators  in  finding  opportunities  for  students.  Both  the 
dressmaking  and  the  commercial  groups  were  from  Washington 
Irving  High  School.  Several  of  the  girls  in  the  dressmaking  class  have 
given  their  opinion  of  the  co-operative  course.  The  commercial 
course  students  are  working  in  the  Department  of  Education,  and 
a  description  of  the  work  done  in  two  of  the  offices  is  attached. 

[821 


That  these  girls  consider  this  work  in  the  offices  of  the  Department 
of  Education  of  value  is  evidenced  by  the  fact  that  they  are  glad 
to  devote  every  other  week  to  it,  although  as  yet  there  is  no  compen- 
sation provided. 

Students  in  Dressmaking  Course — Mary  P.:  At  C's  I  have  gained 
a  great  deal  in  sewing  especially  on  the  finishing  of  skirts.  At  M's 
I  have  done  embroidery,  which  I  did  not  care  for  much  although 
I  have  accomplished  a  great  deal  in  embroidery.  In  N's  I  finished 
linings,  embroidered,  and  various  other  things.  To  me  the  co- 
operative work  was  very  interesting  and  I  learned  much. 

Rose  K. :  I  found  it  a  big  experience  going  out  working.  I've 
learned  the  various  things  one  has  to  go  through  in  the  business 
world.  I  also  found  that  I  had  to  follow  directions  the  first  time 
they  were  given.  I  also  feel  that  I  work  much  quicker  now.  I've 
gained  speed.  My  opinion  of  co-operative  work  is  good.  It  teaches 
one  accuracy,  speed,  self-control,  and  many  other  things. 

Katherine  J.:  I  feel  as  though  I  gained  a  great  deal  in  the  six 
months  I  worked,  for  one  thing  experience.  Another  thing  I 
gained  is  to  concentrate  and  listen  to  given  directions  and  be  able 
to  carry  them  out  carefully  without  having  them  repeated.  My 
opinion  of  this  work  is  most  favorable  because  it  gives  a  girl  an  idea 
of  what  work  is  and  prepares  her.  There  are  numerous  little  things 
in  the  way  of  sewing  that  could  not  be  taught  in  school  because  of 
the  lack  of  time.  I  really  think  that  this  plan  should  be  continued. 

Wilhemina  K.:  I  gained  six  weeks'  experience  in  the  shop.  I 
learned  how  the  shops  are  run  and  the  different  things  a  beginner 
must  do.  I  learned  how  to  do  things  a  little  different  than  in  school, 
but  still  have  the  same  result.  I  think  this  co-operative  course  is 
a  good  one  because  the  girls  get  an  outside  experience. 

Martha  H. :  At  Miss  H's  place  I  didn't  gain  very  much.  I  learned 
how  to  make  fancy  beaded  ornaments.  At  the  other  two  places  I 
received  the  knowledge  of  making  and  winding  lampshades,  also 
putting  on  linings  on  the  shades.  My  opinion  of  this  co-operative 
work  is  that  I  think  it  a  benefit  to  every  girl  who  goes  out  to  these 
shops.  I  found  the  lampshade  work  very  interesting,  just  by  glanc- 
ing up  at  intervals  at  my  neighbors,  although  it  was  tiresome  winding 
the  shades  almost  two  continuous  weeks.  I  believe  I  should  be  able 
to  make  a  lampshade  if  I  attempted  it. 

Henrietta  M. :  I  learned  how  to  make  satin  linings  with  net  sleeves 
to  complete  the  whole  thing.  At  A's  I  learned  how  to  make  lamp- 
shades, bind  corners,  line  and  trim  the  shades  in  all  shapes. 

Millie  D.:  I  feel  that  I  gained  very  much  from  the  co-operative 
work.  I  know  I  can  go  and  apply  now  as  an  experienced  lampshade 

[83] 


maker.  I  liked  the  work  very  much,  but  I  should  like  much  better 
a  dressmaking  establishment.  I  don't  think  I  should  like  to  work 
at  lampshades  after  I  leave  school. 

Hilda  K. :  I  gained  self-reliance,  some  experience  in  finishing,  and 
an  idea  of  lampshade  making.  I  also  learned  at  what  prices  the 
various  articles  are  sold.  My  opinion  of  the  work  is  excellent  in 
that  it  helps  in  securing  positions  after  graduation.  I  suggest  that 
more  places  be  found  for  colored  girls.  Such  was  my  experience. 

Helen  H.:  I  gained  a  great  deal  by  going  to  the  shops,  namely, 
finishing  to  every  detail,  how  to  press  velvet  correctly,  various  kinds 
of  embroidery.  My  opinion  is  that  I  am  very  much  in  favor  of  the 
co-operative  work,  though  it  is  quite  strenuous.  My  idea  on  this 
subject  would  be  to  extend  dressmaking  course  for  another  term. 
The  girls  would  then  have  a  chance  to  discuss  thoroughly  their  ex- 
perience and  drill  on  the  weak  points.  This  I  think  would  make 
them  better  fit  for  business. 

Ethel  R. :  I  gained  practical  experience,  ideas  for  dresses  and  the 
way  to  act  business-like.  I  think  that  the  work  I  did  is  all  right 
while  in  school  because  the  girls  are  gaining  experience  all  the  time, 
but  I  think  it  very  unsatisfactory  work  for  a  high  school  graduate, 
and  quite  a  number  of  girls  continue  doing  this  work  after  graduation 
because  they  have  become  used  to  the  finishing  of  dresses  and  never 
aspire  to  anything  higher  or  more  worth-while. 

Students  in  Commercial  Course — In  the  first  office  students  were 
given  the  following  dictation:  Letters,  reports,  resolutions,  calendar, 
testimony,  and  minutes  of  meetings.  The  work  given  them  to 
typewrite  consists  of  dictated  matter,  copied  letters,  reports,  legal 
matter,  minutes,  extracts  from  board  journal,  board  calendar,  res- 
olutions, estimates  for  contracts,  testimony,  speeches,  addressed 
envelopes,  tabulations,  filled  in  circulars,  forms,  etc.,  and  cutting 
stencils.  In  addition,  the  girls  were  given  other  office  work  as  follows : 
Reading  to  clerk  for  correction  of  minutes,  communications,  etc., 
pasting  minutes  in  a  book  and  indexing  them,  pasting  clippings  in  a 
book,  assorting  legislative  bills,  sending  blanks  to  principals,  folding 
circulars,  telephoning,  mimeographing,  operating  telephone  switch- 
board. 

In  the  second  office  girls  took  dictation  of  reports,  letters,  and  min- 
utes of  meetings.  They  were  given  the  following  typewriting:  Dic- 
tated matter,  copied  letters,  reports,  lists,  statement  of  expen- 

[84] 


ditures,  etc.,  statements  showing  number  of  admissions,  transfers, 
discharges  and  records  of  newsboys'  badges,  filling  in  forms,  cards, 
etc.,  addressing  envelopes  and  cards,  tabulating,  and  cutting  stencils. 
Girls  were  also  expected  to  file  correspondence,  attendance  cards, 
and  employment  record  cards,  and  check  addressed  envelopes  with 
index  cards.  Other  office  work  given  them  was  comparing  lists,  etc., 
for  verification;  folding  circulars  and  preparing  them  for  mailing; 
counting  cards,  etc.;  checking  names  and  finding  cards  for  them; 
using  billing  machine;  telephoning,  and  mimeographing. 


[85] 


QUESTIONNAIRE  USED  IN  STUDY 


Indicate  how  long  you  have  had  the  position  reported, years, months, days. 

If  you  work  for  wages  please  indicate 

What  months,      how  many    number  of        what  did      how  much  did    employer's    employer's 

days,         hours  daily,         you  do,          you  earn?  name,         business. 

July,  1915 
August,  1915 
September,  1915 
October,  1915 

If  you  do  not  work  for  wages  please  indicate 
What  months,  how  many  days,     number  of    what  kind  of  work,       for  whom? 

hours  daily, 
July,  1915 
August,  1915 
September,  1915 
October,  1915 

If  you  tried  to  get  a  job  last  summer  indicate  below  what  you  did  to  get  one: 
Registered  at  an  employment  agency  Answered  advertisements 

Asked  teacher  to  find  me  a  place  Called  on  employers 

Asked  friends  Advertised 

Through  family  influence 

What  were  you  doing  on  the  hours  indicated  below  during  the  past  three  days? 

Yesterday,  Day  before  yesterday,  Day  before  that. 

Before  7  A.M.  ««' 

7  to  8 

8  to  9  *     • 

9  to  10  « «    «   ,c c  «       c      c      °    r. 

10  tO   11  ',       r    t     'c      °     c    «      *       (   «-    <  (<   °c  :> 

11  to  12  <«-•  •    <<'  ;  /;  ..'      U  .*2c  '  •  cc' 

12  to  1 

1  to  2 

2  to  3 

3  to  4 

4  to  5 

5  to  6 

6  to  7 

7  to  8 

8  to  9 

9  to  10 
After  10 

After  you  leave  high  school,  check  on  the  list  below  what  you  intend  doing: 
Go  to  college. 

Go  to  some  other  school;  if  so,  what  kind  of  school? 
Go  into  an  office;  if  so,  what  kind  of  office? 
Go  into  business;  if  so,  what  kind  of  business? 
Go  into  some  other  kind  of  work;  if  so,  what? 

Is  the  work  you  are  doing  outside  of  school 

Of  no  help  in  what  you  intend  doing  after  you  leave  High  School? 

The  same  kind  of  work  you  expect  to  enter  later? 

Somewhat  like  the  work  you  will  enter? 

If  it  will  help  your  future  work  in  some  other  way,  what  is  that  way? 

If  you  were  born  abroad,  how  many  years  have  you  been  in  this  country?    In  this  city? 

What  language  do  you  speak  at  home? 

What  is  your  father's  occupation?    Does  he  own  his  business? 

How  many  older  brothers  and  sisters  have  you? 

What  does  each  do? 

In  what  grade  was  each  when  he  left  school? 

Do  you  live  in  a  flat  or  a  private  house?    If  a  flat,  how  many  rooms? 

Do  you  occupy  the  whole  house,  or  do  you  rent  part  of  it? 

Check  below  recreations  you  have  had  the  past  week  giving  number  of  times  engaged  in 

Movies  Clubs 

Theater  Gymnasium  (outside  of  school  hours) 

Pool  or  billiard  hall  Swimming  pool 

Dance  hall  Athletic  field 

Walking  Games  at  home 

Name  any  other  engaged  in. 


86 


QUESTIONNAIRE  USED  IN  STUDY 


Name  
Address                                     Fat! 

Acre                      School 

icr's  bii 
high  sc 
you  ha\ 

No. 
Hours 

thplace?                              Your  birthplace 

How  many  terms  have  you  been  in 
Kindly  fill  in  the  following  blanks  if 

Work  for  wages  the 
past  week 
Kind  of  Work 

Monday 

hool?  

e  done  any  work  other  than  school  work  the  past  week 

Work  without  wages 
Amt.               the  past  week                                          No. 
Received           Kind  of  Work              For  whom        Hours 

Tuesday  

Wednesday  

Thursday 

Friday  

Saturday  

Sunday 

How  do  you  us 
If  you  have  bee 

*  vour  monev? 

n  working  for  wages  the  past  week,  please  state  how  you  secured  your  position. 

Please  fill  in  the  last  grades  you  rec 
English  Latin  Modern  La 

eived  in  the  subjects  you  were  taking  last  term, 
nguages  Mathematics  Science  History  

[87 


VITA 

The  author,  WALTER  WILLIAM  PETTIT,  was  born  in  Fredonia, 
New  York,  August  9,  1882.  He  received  his  early  education  in  the 
public  schools  of  his  home  town,  graduating  from  the  Fredonia  State 
Normal  School  in  1901.  He  entered  Teachers  College  in  1909,  re- 
ceived the  degree  of  B.S.  two  years  later  and  the  degree  of  Master  of 
Arts  in  1912.  In  1914-15  he  was  in  residence  as  a  graduate  student 
in  Teachers  College  and  continued  his  studies  in  that  institution 
during  1915-16.  He  spent  the  summers  of  1910  and  1912  at  the 
University  of  Chicago  and  1914  and  1915  at  Columbia  University. 

In  1901  he  was  appointed  as  teacher  in  the  Bureau  of  Education 
in  the  Philippine  Islands  and  remained  there  until  1909,  the  last 
four  years  being  in  charge  of  the  Provincial  High  School  of  Bulacan. 
From  1911  to  1913  he  was  principal  of  the  Elementary  Technical 
School,  Evanston,  Illinois;  1913-14  field  secretary  of  the  Playground 
and  Recreation  Association  of  America;  1915-16,  associate  in  the 
New  York  School  of  Philanthropy;  1916-17,  assistant  to  the  Ambas- 
sador, Petrograd,  Russia;  1917-18,  assistant  director  of  the  New 
York  School  of  Philanthropy;  1918-19,  U.  S.  Army. 


